Strike-COM
by Vn70072
Summary: An unexpected arrival during an XCOM operation puts the project in contact with three beings of unusual and extraordinary power...
1. Chapter 1

The XCOM project. Mankind's response when imagined science fiction became grim reality. The problems started small. Satellite malfunctions. Anomalous radar contacts. Perfectly plausible disappearances from rural regions.

But it grew. Panic spread like wildfire around the globe as otherworldly creatures descended from the stars in strange ships, burning, killing, snatching. An alliance of countries from around the world formed and activated XCOM, a unit drawing from the best scientists and soldiers of numerous nations. Their mission was to combat the aliens and protect humanity around the globe.

"Central." The voice resonated from speakers under a massive holographic display that threw light to the furthest corners of XCOM's situation room. Even during the graveyard shift, it bustled with activity, with technicians monitoring various reports from around the globe and studying the telemetry from XCOM's satellites.

"This is Central, go ahead, Plumber." A man in his thirties with close-cropped brown hair crossed his arms. By idle habit, he reached up and adjusted the microphone boom on his headset.

"We're approaching the LZ," reported the female voice of Lieutenant Francesca 'Plumber' Giovi. "Setting down just south of the crash site. Piping video feed now."

Central Officer Bradford leaned over the shoulder of a female technician and scrutinized the feed coming into the tech's monitor. The UFO, attacked by one of XCOM's interceptors, had gone down hard in the mountains of rural Japan. A wide swathe had been plowed through the trees, and the ground was rent by a great furrow. Flaming debris had been scattered everywhere in the crash's wake.

"Lima Team is on the ground," reported Plumber.

Bradford cast a sidelong glance at the man standing next to him. "Are you sure sending this team was a good idea? They're awfully green."

Commander Mikhail Chekov had been assigned commander of XCOM operations. Creeping toward his forties, he was still in excellent shape, his face and head clean-shaven. He wore an unadorned uniform of a military style, in contrast to the more business-like attire of most of the personnel in the command center. His features were not yet craggy, but his brown eyes had seen a great deal during his time with the Russian special forces. He was a man used to dealing with an enemy, and that he survived as long as he had through operations well and ill meant he was not one to be trifled with. The perfect candidate, it seemed, based on his strong majority selection by the Council of Nations.

"Our choices are limited, hm?" Chekov spoke accented but readily understood English. With a hand he gestured toward another flashing red icon on the globe, indicating to the abduction spree in South Africa that Strike-One and Voodoo three-one, their other transport, were responding to. "UFO seven went down close to a nuclear power plant. Delays would have been unacceptable."

Still, Chekov did not admonish Bradford for his skepticism. They were doubts he had himself. But they had to do something. XCOM was humanity's best hope. They had to fight the aliens wherever they appeared, and keep the damage to a minimum. The withdrawal of Argentina and India from the Council of Nations may have been mitigated slightly by Sweden's admission, but it still fired Chekov's determination to improve the project's performance.

Four biomonitors pulsed to life on a nearby display, and a visual feed piped in from Lima three's helmet camera. "Remember Lima," said Bradford. "It's unlikely that the entire crew was killed in the crash. Approach the craft with extreme caution."

The four soldiers darted from cover to cover, the broad daylight offering little concealment. Their training served them well, covering one another's flanks, but Chekov sighed as he watched them. They had the right idea, but their execution was still sloppy.

* * *

Sergeant Burke walked point, his pump-action shotgun at the ready. His weapon and his eyes swept the forest before him, keeping his attention immediate even as it continued to want to wander forward to the sight of the crashed UFO before him.

Squaddie Raginis, plus recruits Amber and Koch, followed not far behind. Twigs and dead leaves crunched beneath their boots as they pushed through the underbrush toward the downed saucer. "It's quiet," remarked Koch, shaking her head.

Pausing, Raginis realized she was right. There were no birds, no frogs or insects calling out, and the only movement they heard was their own.

"All the wildlife had the sense to clear out," said Amber, giving a dark, humorless chuckle.

"Squad, quiet down," Burke growled into his radio. "Central, we have movement up ahead." He gestured to Raginis. The squad's sniper moved forward, taking up a position behind a tree. The Polish soldier raised his binoculars to his eyes, and scanned over the crashed UFO.

The vaguely circular ship was approximately fifty meters across, with one side crumpled and blown open. Raginis gave a thin-lipped smile, imagining the moment that the high-yield Avalanche missile had blasted that hole into the ship, no doubt killing at least a few "ET's" and causing this crash.

Scuttling about outside the wreck, he saw a trio of small bipeds. Their skin was shiny and gray, their hunched stance and bandy arms more reminiscent of apes. The glimmer of their wide orange eyes was visible even from a hundred meters out, as was the greenish light of their plasma pistols. On his last mission, Raginis had seen bolts from those plasma pistols blast beachball-sized holes in reinforced concrete, and he dreamed of getting his hands on one. A pity the aliens had the foresight to equip their weapons with a mechanism to self-destruct them if the wielder was killed.

"Three 'toids," Raginis murmured to his fellows. "No other contacts."

"Three sectoids." Burke nodded. "Raginis, find a good vantage point. Get ready to light 'em up when we engage. You two, with me." Burke, Amber, and Koch slipped in closer, while Raginis ducked behind a jagged chunk of the UFO's hull that had come loose during the crash and lodged itself a hundred meters from its mother's resting place. The furrow left him a clear field of fire, and now he peered down his rifle scope at the sectoids that still milled about seemingly without aim.

Raginis frowned. Had the alien commander been killed? A chilling, guttural cry split the mountain air, followed by the roar of rocket engines. He caught a flash of movement, and his gut chilled. "Behind you!" he barked into his radio, swinging his heavy rifle around.

Two misshapen constructs hurled toward the remainder of the squad, their bodies looking like a hideous collision between person and jet aircraft that no one had bothered to sort out. Their bodies lacked legs, supported only by arms and the massive boosters mounted into their shoulders. Cybernetic implants were visibly fused to raw, skinless-looking flesh.

The monsters fired plasma pistols as they came, catching three of the XCOM soldiers from the flank. Their barrage went wide of Amber and Burke dove for cover, but Koch went down screaming as superheated plasma washed over her.

"Koch, no!" Amber cried out in shock, his eyes wide with horror as they stared at the smoldering body.

"Fall back!" barked Burke. "Toward Ragi's position!" He keyed his radio. "Cover fire!"

Raginis didn't need to be told even once. Supporting his rifle against a rather convenient notch in the alloy chunk he hid behind, he squeezed off a .338 slug. He cursed as the floater in his sights kept right on going, clearly not hit, and continuing to spray plasma at Burke.

The assault specialist popped out from behind his rock and fired off a load of heavy buckshot. The lead floater lacked antlers but let out a loud bellow as the metal pellets smashed the plating over its right shoulder and drove into the flesh beneath it.

"Now, go!" Burke called to Amber, pumping another round into his weapon.

Amber fired a short burst from his assault rifle in the general direction of the two oncoming floaters, and one of them angled ahead of him, trying to cut him off.

Seeing the angles, Raginis cursed in his native tongue and tweaked his scope. His sights settled over the floater's center of mass, just below the neck, and his finger tightened on the trigger.

Heat washed over Raginis as plasma bolts hissed around his hiding spot. The sectoids, likely the bait for the trap Lima team had walked right into, were now loping toward the sniper's position. Though their aim was atrocious, the imminent threat was enough to force Raginis back.

Burke tugged a grenade from his harness and removed its pin. The priming handle popped loose, and he lobbed the cylinder toward the floaters. Maybe lady luck would smile upon them and both would catch fatal doses of shrapnel.

"Lima one, this is Central. You need to fall back -"

"I know, Central!" Burke ducked as his grenade went off. He wondered if he had scored any kills, but the plasma bolt that evaporated a chunk of the tree next to him put that notion to rest.

"One, this is three!" Raginis had put a rocky ridge between himself and the sectoids, but the higher, more distant ground gave him the sight of more trouble. "We've got two more floaters coming in from the west!"

"More!?" Amber's voice rose in panic. "No, no! We have to get out of here!"

"Central, can we get any air support?" Raginis said. "It's about to get really nasty down here and we're already down a man."

There was a pause as Bradford consulted with someone. "Affirmative, Lima. JASDF is scrambling planes. ETA, fifteen minutes."

Burke's hand clenched into a fist at that news. Air support was welcome, but he knew that in a firefight like this, those fifteen minutes might as well be hours.

Recruit Amber continued to run, his path growing into a beeline back toward the Skyranger's position. The floater chasing him paused, the barrel of its weapon tracking him. Seeing this, Raginis desperately keyed his headset. "Duck!"

A plasma bolt, vibrant green but almost as bright as the sun above streaked out. Amber fell to the ground, a smoking hole in the back of his armor. He gasped, clawing weakly at the dirt, but the floater closed in and did not cease its fire until little remained but a glassy crater.

The other floater had closed with Burke, flushing out of one tree and toward another. The beefy sergeant swung out from the tree's other side and fired his shotgun. The weapon coughed up a deadly payload of deadly lead pellets that splashed against the floater like supersonic hail.

Several pellets cracked the housing on the floater's right booster. A rushing whine emitted from the device, and the floater gave its best approximation of horror before it was consumed in a fiery blast.

"Get back to the transport!" Burke said into the radio. "Do you copy, three? Get out of here!" Harsh static crackled back from his earpiece.

"Burke, Burke, get out of there!" Raginis said into his radio. "Damn it, Burke!" His radio burbled frustratingly at him, resisting even the tried and true field fix of a hard whack to the side of its plastic casing. "Central, what's the ETA on that air support?" Again, no response but static. His radio was dead, it had to have been jamming. He could still see Burke out there fighting for his life, but the other two floaters while spreading out, trying to flank him. And Raginis himself had another floater and those three sectoids to worry about.

So the aliens knew divide and conquer. Plus they had figured out how to jam XCOM's radios, no mean feat considering the communications gear had been specifically made to resist this kind of thing.

Dropping to one knee, Raginis sighted on the sectoids approaching him. A check of the scope's integrated rangefinder showed the grays to be well within range of his rifle. The sectoids on the other hand appeared to have a hard time hitting the broad side of a barn from this range. Raginis had no such problems. His first bullet ripped into one of the sectoids just below the neck, entering and exiting with a shower of yellow-green ichor. The alien folded like a house of cards in a stiff wind, and Raginis swung his weapon around.

A plasma bolt passed near enough to Raginis that he felt some of the exposed skin on his face blister, and a warning tone in his ear signaled that his helmet camera was offline. Looking up from his scope, he saw the floater closing in rapidly. Slinging his long arm, Raginis drew his pistol and opened fire. Round after round snapped from the weapon, several clearly hitting the alien. The cyborg shuddered under the barrage of lead. It raised its arm, but even the light weight of the small pistol-grip weapon shuddered in the creature's weakened grip.

"Boom," hissed Raginis, taking the time to aim one last shot. The magnum round smashed straight into one of the creature's luminous eye sockets, and out through the back of the creature's metallic skull, bringing with it an assortment of bits both organic and cybernetic.

Raginis's headset crackled weakly. "- Plumber. Lima – read me?"

The sniper winced as he saw a distant explosion flash amidst the trees. He recognized the sound as one of XCOM's mark XI fragmentation grenades, and had a feeling that the most of Lima team that would be making it home was one. "This is Lima three, I copy. It's bad, Plumber."

"Jamming is dropping," reported Plumber, the pilot's voice coming in loud and clear. "Lima team, what's your status?"

"Two down, one missing," Raginis said, scurrying back away from the ridge. The remaining two sectoids had closed in, and were finally finding the range. "And I just saw more emerging from the UFO. Central, do you copy?"

"We read you, Lima three. The jets are still ten minutes out."

Hearing the roar of rocket engines, Raginis looked up and saw floaters shooting high into the air. The cyborgs arced toward him, to cut him off or flank him.

"Lima, I'm picking up something on radar," said Plumber.

"We've spotted it as well, Voodoo three-two," said Bradford. "What...?" He trailed off.

"Someone want to tell me what 'it' is?" asked Raginis, looking for cover as he headed back for the dropship.

* * *

"What the hell was that? And where's Wilcke?"

"I don't know. That light was just... huge. I thought it was an attack."

"But it didn't even drain our shields..."

"Wait, was that an explosion just now?"

"Yeah, I can see it from up here. What the hell...?"

"Send us the video feed – oh – what!?"

"I'm going in! Get over there as soon as you ground-pounders can."

"But those aren't even Neuroi..."

"It could be a new form of them or something."

"I don't care. They aren't human and what they're shooting at is! Fox Two!"

* * *

Raginis readied his rifle again, and breathed as he'd been trained to. Considering he was under fire from three directions, it was no small feat. The sharp crack of his rifle report split the forest air, and the struck floater gurgled as it collapsed in a heap, blood leaking from under its face plating. A savage, humorless grin formed on the sniper's pale lips. At least Charon's ferry would not be a lonely place tonight.

As he worked the bolt of his rifle smoothly, fiery pain exploded across side just below his ribs. A plasma blast had grazed him, burning through the uniform and leaving the flesh blackened and raw. With rapidly numbing fingers, Raginis managed to finish cycling his rifle's bolt. But as he peered down his scope once more, the forest appeared oddly colorless and dark.

The ground bucked beneath Raginis's feet, and he was surprised to see the target in his sights consumed in a fiery explosion. Where the remaining sectoids had stood was now a blasted crater, fragments of their weapons smoldering.

He heard the crackle of heavy cannon fire, followed by a muffled explosion. The scream of jet engines drilled into his ears, making the trooper wince even in his shock-addled state. More missiles streaked down from the sky, striking near the crash site.

"This is Lima three," Raginis rasped into his mic. "I'm hit. Burns. Shock," he managed, sinking to his knees. "Thank the boys... for the air support."

"Lima three, say again," even over the radio, Bradford's confusion was evident. "The JASDF birds are still five minutes out."

"Central, this is Plumber, we've got a bogey in the air. Whatever it is, it just took out the remaining x-rays."

The ground rumbled beneath Raginis again. He looked up, squinting his eyes against the darkness encroaching at the edges of his vision. Two forms with long gun barrels, sloped frontal plating, and heavy tracks rode toward him, and he initially mistook them for main battle tanks. But as the odd, bipedal constructs ground to a halt and two young women jumped down, Raginis's fading mind registered that he must have been hallucinating.

* * *

"This one is hurt!" exclaimed Captain Yaira Nafshi, kneeling over the wounded soldier. She winced when she saw where his uniform had been burned away, and the skin beneath had not been much better off. She checked his pulse, finding it weak and intermittent. "Mariya, hurry!"

Senior Lieutenant Mariya Voronkova hastily jumped down from her striker unit, stumbling slightly as she landed. Even as she ran over to the wounded soldier, the Orussian officer couldn't help but wonder what was going on. "I don't recognize that uniform. Are they self-defense forces?"

"At least he's human," Yaira's hand hovered near her sidearm. "I don't know what those creatures that Ji took out were..."

"Maybe they're connected to the Neuroi somehow." As Mariya knelt over the unconscious man, she placed one hand over his forehead and another over his collarbone. The witch inhaled deeply, and felt a familiar warmth flowing to her fingers. Rounded fuzzy brown animal ears sprouted up from the sides of her head, and a stump of a tail grew from the seat of her jumpsuit. A bluish aura pulsed to life around her hands as energy flowed from her body into the soldier's. Her power could not truly heal, but it could strengthen her comrades prior to battle, or preserve the life of someone critically wounded long enough for them to receive proper medical attention.

Yaira tugged her helmet off and raked a hand through her dark hair. It had all started in the late 1930s, when strange obsidian-black flying things had appeared in Earth's skies and begun a war of terror and extermination against mankind. Humanity's only defense had come from the work of Doctor Miyafuji, and his development of the striker unit. Only witches, those born with magical power, could use the constructs to fly and fight back against the Neuroi with a mixture of magic and modern weapons. After years of hard fighting, humanity seemed to have driven the Neuroi away, but two years ago the space monsters had returned and a new war began. A new generation of witches equipped with modernized striker units, including the newer land-based models, lead Earth's defense. "Maybe they are connected," said Yaira at last. "But in two wars with the bastards we've never seen anything like that before."

"Language," Mariya said with the smallest smile, but her eyes remained intense as she transferred energy. "There," she said, exhaling deeply. "That should keep him alive for now. Better raise Komatsu base and tell them to get a medivac over here."

"That's going to be a problem," a voice crackled in over their earpieces.

Mariya blinked. "What do you mean, Ji?"

"I'm not getting any responses on radio," said Ji, her voice oddly rigid. "I'm picking up plenty of traffic, but none of it on the bands we use. No response from Lizbeth, either." That had been the other 'sky witch', Ji's wingmate, but there had been no response since Lizbeth's energy burst had collided with that of the attacking Neuroi.

"I'm sure she's fine," Yaira said at once. "She probably just fried her radio and is heading back to base."

Mariya heard a rustle off the side and snapped her head around. "Yaira, behind you!" But the witch's warning came too late, and a cruel web of electricity arced over Yaira's form. The Zion witch let out a cry of pain before collapsing to the ground.

A disheveled and bloody looking man stood behind her, holding a bulky, squarish hand weapon. He squeezed the trigger again, and in a flash of light Mariya blacked out.

* * *

"Central, this is Lima one," Burke's voice was haggard. Blood trickled down his face, and he could still feel burning pain his shoulder where he had taken a piece of shrapnel from his own desperate grenade. "I've neutralized a pair of unknowns. They were doing something to Lima three. I think they might be a new type of thin man. One of them was showing some kind of mammalian features until I hit her with the arc thrower.

He looked up at the towering machines parked nearby. "Central, it looks like they were using some kind of exoskeletal equipment. Look like tanks standing on two legs..." In his mind, it only made sense. Thin men were slippery, but weak in combat. It would fit that a similar infiltrator would need a technological edge to keep up if the fighting started.

"Perhaps a new surface warfare weapons system," said Doctor Shen. In charge of the engineering sections of XCOM, it wasn't often that the aging man observed missions from the situation room, but the events he was hearing of intrigued him. "Do you see that bogey, Lima one? Our radar is having a great deal of difficulty tracking it."

"Negative," said Burke, shaking his head before realizing there was no one around to see it.

"We should bring the exoskeletons in for study," said Doctor Shen.

"No way they'll fit in the skyranger," said Burke. "See if the locals can loan us transports to haul them back to base with."

"One, what is is three's condition?" Commander Chekov asked, despite being known to rarely key his headset.

Burke knelt over the unconscious Raginis. "I think he's stable, but he's burned pretty bad. Looks like a plasma graze. If it had hit him dead-on, I'd be pulling a delta." Ever since XCOM's first operation ended in disaster for delta team, a near total loss had been called as such, and the team name had been retired.

"Get three back to the skyranger, then load up the prisoners. Central out."

* * *

**XCOM Headquarters, Central Europe**

Central Officer Bradford stood in the main lab, gazing into the interrogation chamber. A thick sheet of wraparound plexiglass provided those outside the stark, brightly lit room with a clear view of its interior and its unconscious occupant. She appeared to be a rather short teenage girl with ivory skin and wavy black hair. Her military uniform did not conform to any known on Earth, nor did her unit patch or even her flag, though the thick white, red, and blue striping did look similar to Russia's flag. Her features looked soft and delicate, nothing like the previous infiltrators that were picked out so easily. "So, that's one of the new thin men?"

"That was the field man's initial suspicion, yes," said Doctor Vahlen, head scientist at XCOM headquarters. Rarely seen outside her labcoat, with her brown hair drawn into a tight bun, the only thing separating the woman from a stereotypical scientist look was her lack of glasses. Vahlen oversaw all the research suites in the facility, ranging from autopsies to research and development. "It would now appear that 'man' would not be technically correct. Cursory analysis of the DNA is also... troubling."

"How so, doctor?" The doors hissed shut behind Commander Chekov as he strode over.

Vahlen took a sip of water before continuing. "While thin men look just human enough to blend in with a crowd, it's very much just skin deep. Their blood is not even the right color, and the DNA is wholly different." She passed Chekov a tablet showing a DNA analysis. "This specimen on the other hand, is physically indistinguishable, lacking even the bizarre jointing. And the DNA, aside from a few minute abnormalities, is entirely human."

"It could be a new breed of infiltrator," Bradford said, looking grim. "One that's much harder to weed out. What about their exoskeletons?"

"There's no hypersonic transport large enough for them," said Commander Chekov. "The C-2s carrying them aren't due for another three hours."

"I imagine Doctor Shen will want to be there when they arrive." Doctor Vahlen smiled, knowing what it was like to be that excited to crack open a new alien mystery. "In the mean time, with your permission, we will begin the interrogation immediately."

Before Chekov could answer, a voice over the announcement system interrupted them. "Commander to the situation room. Commander to the situation room."

Chekov gave a rueful, amused chuckle. "Being in charge, someone always needs you." He tapped his earpiece. "Situation room, this is the commander. Report."

"Sir," said the voice on the other end. "We have an unidentified contact on radar, heading in our direction at mach 2. It's proving hard to get a fix on. We've never seen anything like it before. Anti-air defenses are coming online now, but even visual scanning is showing nothing."

"Understood," said Chekov. "Declare base alert level two. I'm on my way." He turned to Vahlen. "Is other one secure?"

"Yes, commander. It is in a holding cell on level two."

"Good." Chekov turned his brown eyes to the unconscious form in the cell. "Vahlen, do not proceed yet with the interrogation. You may want to get your team to the shelters until this bogey has been dealt with."

"Aren't you going to report to the shelter, Doctor Vahlen?" a member of XCOM security approached the chief scientist from behind, looking slightly nervous. "It's not mandatory until level one, but I would recommend it."

Doctor Vahlen, staring at the captive she had not yet been cleared to interrogate, waved the soldier away. "Studying aliens and their weaponry always carries some risk. Besides, I have every confidence in our defenses."

"You shouldn't." Doctor Vahlen heard a menacing click come from behind her as what felt all too much like the barrel of a gun nestled itself against the base of her skull. "You there, with the doughnut crumbs in your mustache. Weapon down!"

Flustered, the soldier brushed at his neatly-trimmed beard, before spotting the distortion in the air behind Doctor Vahlen. His weapon, a compact, bullpup-configuration sub machine gun, rose toward the distortion.

"I said weapon down!" the voice, clearly female, rose in volume. "Or so help me I'll..."

Unable to even see the threat, the guard carefully set his weapon down on the floor. As he did so however, he pressed the panic button on his radio, sending out a silent alert. "Okay, now what?"

"You're going to tell me what the hell you think you're doing capturing witches on UN business."

"Witches?" Doctor Vahlen echoed in confusion. "And what's this about UN business? We encountered you near a crashed UFO." They had never encountered aliens with a native understanding of any Earth language before, and here this one acted as though XCOM was out of line.

"You did," the pistol dug a little harder into Vahlen's neck. "And in return for my saving your asses you abduct my squadmates. And what, I wonder, is that chamber for? Doesn't look like any medical suite!"

"It's an interrogation chamber," Vahlen said with tart honesty. "It's where we study and vivisect you and any other invading aliens."

"Me and any other aliens?" The extended gun, a standard-looking military issue semi automatic, shook. "I'm not an alien, you chang nhyu. And I've never heard of anyone taking Neuroi alive for study, they're a bit big to cut open with a scalpel, don't you think?"

"Neuroi?" Again, the girl used words Vahlen didn't understand. At least 'witch' had some meaning to it, but Neuroi was completely, no pun intended, alien to her.

"Perhaps we should start simple," Doctor Vahlen said, trying not to shiver. She could deal with all sorts of blood and gore and unpleasant thoughts, but she was not used to being in personal danger like this. "I am Doctor Vahlen. I'm from Austria. I'm a scientist."

"Never heard of it," snapped the voice. "Ji. Republic of Gauri. Witch flier."

"Never heard of that," the soldier said patiently, his eyes flicking toward the door. Any second now, an armed security detail ought to be bursting in.

"Don't care," Ji said flatly. "Let my friends go now and maybe I won't let the next Neuroi that comes this way have its fun burning this hole to the ground."

"Might I ask," began Vahlen. "Exactly what is this 'Neuroi' you keep referring to?"

The pressure against Vahlen's neck eased slightly. "If you've never heard of the Neuroi, maybe this place isn't so bad after all." Despite the softness of her words, Ji's tone remained bitter.

"Perhaps not," said Vahlen. "We may not have your Neuroi, but we still have the sectoids and their ilk to deal with."

Ji gave a shuddering breath. "Your enemies are aliens. Mine are too. Sounds like we're on the same side."

"Yes," Vahlen breathed, still very tense.

"So, being on the same side," Ji went on. "I don't think holding cells or interrogation chambers are appropriate places for Mariya there or Yaira." She withdrew her pistol, and the distortion around her slid away. Her form was revealed as an impressive if not towering 5'8", fit and toned, while her skin tone, dark brown hair, and dark, almond-shaped eyes made her appear of east Asian descent. Her attire looked like a military flightsuit from the waist up, but ended in short shorts, and her feet were bare.

"Now!" Bradford said into his headset. The situation room had been monitoring the standoff in the lab via security cameras since Corporal Burnside had triggered his alert. Immediately the lab doors hissed open, and a small cylinder was lobbed into the room. The flashbang clanked as it landed and rolled. The detonation filled the room with an overload of light and sound. Doctor Vahlen staggered away from Ji while Burnside fell to the ground and groped for his weapon.

Ji's vision swam and danced, but she could still make out the shapes of soldiers rushing into the room. One of them held a weapon identical to the one that had been used to capture the others. The woman holding it squeezed the trigger, but Ji was faster. A circle of blue light burst into being in front of Ji, filled with sweeping lines and glowing runes as it slowly rotated. The electrical discharge of the arc thrower splashed harmlessly across the barrier.

"No effect!" yelled the woman, before switching back to a shotgun. She and a half dozen others opened up with precision fire, hammering Ji's shield with lead. The shield rippled minutely with each impact, appearing now as a puddle in a downpour.

One after another, crumpled bullets and flattened pellets collected on the floor until a series of clicking sounds were heard. All five security operators had emptied their weapons to no apparent effect. Momentary surprise washed over them, for even the experienced operatives had never seen an alien that could stand up to that much firepower. Several went for reloads while others drew sidearms.

Ji leveled her pistol at the soldier furthest to the left. "Bang!" she said, moving onto the next. "Bang, bang, bang, bang!" She made a show out of flipping her safety on and then holstering her pistol. "Now, if I wanted you dead, you would be."

"Lower your weapons." The face of Commander Chekov appeared on one of the lab monitors. The security team complied, though Ji noticed they did not put them on safe. In return, she dispelled her shield. "Now then." Chekov turned his attention to the intruder. "You have a name, young lady?"

"Lieutenant Ji Kim," she said, snapping off a crisp salute. "Republic of Gauri Air Force, on assignment with the 309th Expeditionary Air Wing."

"Gauri," said Doctor Vahlen, rubbing her forehead. "Is that a country of Earth? Where is it on the map?"

Ji wrinkled her brow in confusion, but after a glance at the security operatives decided to answer. "It's along the eastern coast of the Asian continent, centered about thirty eight degrees north by one twenty six east. It's just west of Fuso."

"That's the location of Korea," murmured Doctor Vahlen.

"A unified Korea," said Chekov.

"She's also been speaking of alien invaders called the Neuroi," said Vahlen.

"Yes," Ji said bitterly. "They're huge black flying things. They shoot lasers and continually regenerate battle damage until you blast their core. Only witches can fight them effectively."

"Considering the job you did here, I'm not surprised," Bradford appeared beside the commander.

"Alright," said Chekov. "Assuming that you aren't some new generation of infiltrator, how is that you remember an Earth completely different from ours? Different country names, different aliens..."

Another speaker appeared behind Chekov. "Commander," said Doctor Shen, the bespectacled, balding man walking into frame. "I believe I have a theory. I did some checking of our satellite readings for the mission area, and I discovered an unusual energy burst shortly before Ji rescued Lima team. From there, one must delve into quantum mechanics for an explanation... I suspect these young women came from a parallel universe."

"A parallel universe?" Bradford shook his head. "This isn't science fiction, doct..." He trailed off as Chekov gave him a look. "Right."

"It is just a theory," continued Doctor Shen. "But it does answer all our questions at hand. Their sudden appearance, their different technologies, political geology, and extraterrestrial problems."

Doctor Vahlen, who had been looking over a tablet, sank heavily into a chair. Her tablet clattered to the ground, lost by a shaking hand. Her face was pale, and it took her a moment to speak when she saw everyone staring. "I just completed a search of that... witch's DNA, looking for specific markers. The aliens' genetic engineering always leaves certain traces, no matter the species, sectoid, floater... and she possesses no such markers."

Ji made an impatient noise of agreement, tapping her bare foot on the cold metal floor. "Now, let my friends go. We're not your enemy." The girl's eyes glinted dangerously as if to say, 'but if you keep this up, we will be.'

"Do it," said Commander Chekov. "Once her companions have regained consciousness, I would like to discuss things with all of you in one of the conference rooms."


	2. Chapter 2

The three witches, reunited, now waited in one of the level one conference rooms. Ji alone appeared to be relaxed, the Gaurian witch lounging in a thickly padded leather chair, her expression pensive. Yaira was eying the guards posted outside the open doors with withering dislike. She did not take having been ambushed well. Her hand rested not quite on her returned sidearm, and she stood leaning against the polished wooden surface of the oval conference table rather than sitting at one of the chairs around it.

Hailing from Zion, the woman was no stranger to conflict. Her country had been besieged repeatedly by its neighbors between the Neuroi wars, and even now the ZDF remained alert for the possibility that someone might try to exploit the situation. Her skin was a sun-baked golden brown, and her shiny black hair was trimmed short at exactly the regulation eighteen centimeters. Her tanker uniform was two-tone camouflage, ending in shorts and bare legs the same as her companions. Standing at nearly six feet tall, said legs were quite long in her case.

Mariya had busied herself with the computer station built into the head position of the table. Her eyes were fixed on the luminous screen as her fingers stroked the keyboard, and at her command a section of the table near the center retracted and shone a light into the air. The overhead florescents dimmed slightly as a tangle of green lines wove themselves together.

They formed a holographic, sketchy outline of XCOM's base. It was all buried underground, and the schematic showed where the thick layers of rock had been augmented with steel, cement, and ceramics to protect it from bombardment. The main lift formed a central shaft, connecting three levels of the base plus a fourth under construction below that. There were generators, barracks, labs, fabrication areas, even a command center and a hangar bay.

There came a knock at the doorway, and Bradford strode into the room, followed by Commander Chekov, and Doctors Vahlen and Shen. Shen paused when he saw Mariya fiddling with the computer. "Who gave you system access?" His eyes narrowed shrewdly, he seemed to suspect the answer.

"Um," Mariya said sheepishly, tapping a key and abandoning the head of the table. "No one..."

"She did it herself," Yaira said with a cocky grin. "How did you put it, Mariya? 'Their software is shit'" She shifted her voice to sound like she was speaking with what was to this world a Russian accent.

Mariya flushed red and scampered to seat herself at Ji's left side, and was joined by Yaira sitting to her left. Chekov seated himself at the head of the table and cast a dubious look at the computer that Mariya had so readily tampered with. The others seated themselves opposite the witches at the table.

"I've been running this operation for two months," said Commander Chekov. "I have seen many strange things, and we have all had to learn quickly. But I never imagined encountering any of these 'alternate realities' as Doctor Shen explained."

"But first of all," said Bradford. "We would like to thank you for your timely rescue of Lima team, and extend our apologies over the assault on the two of you."

Mariya nodded pleasantly, but Yaira pressed her lips into a thin line at the mention of it. Seeing this, Mariya gently elbowed Yaira, encouraging her with a look to lighten up. "I believe most of the thanks would go to Ji," said the Orussian witch.

"I wish half our interceptor pilots could match her," said Chekov. "Between her precision strikes against the sectoids, and her infiltration of our base..." He chuckled ruefully, perhaps realizing how strange it must have sounded for a commander to commend his base being compromised.

Ji smiled at the compliment, but the pleasure did not extend to her eyes, which looked distant, preoccupied.

"Did our searches of the region turn up any additional witches?" asked Doctor Vahlen.

"Negative." Bradford shook his head. "It's just these three."

What little expression there was in Ji's face quickly left it, a fact not lost on Chekov. "Are you missing a man – er – woman?"

"Er, yes," said Mariya, casting a nervous glance at Ji. "Lisbeth Wilcke of Karlsland. Ji's wingmate, granddaughter of one of the most renowned witches in history."

"Your history," noted Bradford. "Care to bring us up to speed?"

"General Minna Dietlinde Wilcke," said Mariya. "During the first Neuroi war, she was in command of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing – the Strike Witches. Over the course of the war, the unit accumulated over a thousand aerial victories against the Neuroi, and was instrumental in the liberation of Gallia – your France – Venezia – the northern half of your Italy – Karlsland - your Germany, as well as breaking the Neuroi siege of Suomus - Finland."

"You're a quick study," remarked Doctor Vahlen.

"Yes," said Yaira, her eyes narrowing. "She's even faster when she's not ambushed and thrown in an interrogation cell."

"And again, we apologize," Chekov cut in. "We've never had friendly visitors before. I confess we suspected you were a newer, better type of infiltrator. The 'thin men' can pass themselves off in crowds, but when they start scurrying around or take off their sunglasses it's kind of obvious."

"Thanks," grunted Yaira.

"And that's before they start shooting plasma weapons at our people," Bradford added dryly.

"And in case you're wondering," Mariya went on. "Yes, witches did fly on brooms once upon a time. The striker unit was a 20th century equivalent, though real brooms are still sometimes used for training purposes. Initial striker units used propellers, but later on jet-powered ones were developed. It was decades from the end of the first Neuroi war to the start of the second, but we picked up just enough noise on deep-space sensors to make everyone nervous."

"And what of the land-based units?" said Doctor Shen.

"Those were developed to place greater emphasis on firepower and durability, and to combat new land-based Neuroi," said Mariya. "Flying consumes an enormous amount of magic, and so if that energy can be channeled elsewhere it makes for rather formidable firepower."

"I can't believe I'm about to ask this," said Doctor Vahlen, rubbing her forehead. "But I can't help the curiosity. Is there a reason your uniforms end in shorts and lack footwear?"

"Because of our striker units," said Mariya. "When we equip them, our legs are shunted into a pocket dimension, it leaves more room for the striker's inner workings. Extra clothing would just have to come off."

"Pocket dimension?" Doctor Shen raised an eyebrow. "Impressive."

"Originally, it was just for the witch's legs." Mariya leaned forward slightly. "But eventually we started using it to store ammo as well."

Doctor Vahlen nodded thoughtfully. "I thought the munitions packs on the two land units looked too small to be practical."

Yairi smirked and put her feet up on the table. "Each magazine looks like it could only hold a handful of rounds, but can hold about two hundred of mixed types for the main gun."

"I'd really hate to be on the wrong side of a fight with you guys," Bradford rubbed the stubble on his chin. To think that this other Earth had been able to do such things for decades. Not even the aliens, with their huge technological advantage, had ever demonstrated such an ability.

"The land striker units arrived just before we sat down," said Doctor Vahlen. She looked to the three witches. "Would you give us permission to study them? Even if we could only duplicate your munitions storage technology, it would be a huge advantage."

"We need to get home," Yaira said pointedly. "We have a war going on too, and we were in the middle of a battle when – whatever it was – happened."

"What exactly did transpire?" Doctor Shen leaned forward and steeped his fingers, plainly curious.

"We detected a Neuroi approaching the Fuso home islands from the west," said Ji. "Headed for a city along the coast. The four of us were deployed to intercept, two flight witches to engage it and two ground witches for heavy firepower to deter it from a direct approach to the city." She met none of the eyes looking at her, and continued to narrate in a subdued, almost mechanical tone. "It tried to circle around the city, but Liz and I cut it off. We hit it hard and it lost altitude, and about that time, Voronkova and Nafshi got into firing position. We were about to finish it off when it opened fire, and at the same time, Lizbeth fired off her energy burst attack. There was a flash of light, but no real explosion, and next thing we knew..."

"We were here," said Mariya. "On your Earth instead of ours."

"That doesn't sound like it would be easily duplicated," said Chekov, looking down at the desk.

"Indeed," Shen flexed his fingers. "It's difficult to endeavor in interdimensional travel when it was the stuff of fiction until last night."

Doctor Vahlen glanced at her tablet. "Perhaps not. We're in the final testing stages of battlefield practical directed energy weapons. Six months ago, they seemed decades away."

"Did the JSDF secure the area?" Chekov looked to Bradford.

"Affirmative." The officer nodded. "Should we dispatch a science team?"

"Do it. There might be fading signs we missed before. Radiation, foreign matter traces... anything learned now may be of use later."

Bradford pulled out a tablet and immediately began drafting the mission order.

"In the mean time," Chekov placed his hands on the table. "I have arranged quarters for you on this base. You'll have free access to most of the facility, but please do not attempt to enter any restricted areas." He looked among the girls, uncertain whom to regard as their leader. "Are these measures acceptable?"

"Can we at least go outside?" Ji asked, looking to Chekov at last.

"Yes," said the commander. "So long as you remain within the perimeter." The witches exchanged glances, but nodded agreement one by one. "And with your permission, we would... like to study your striker units."

"Forget it," Yaira said flatly.

"Why?" Compared to her compatriot, Mariya was more curious than hostile. "They're the culmination of decades of work from the most brilliant minds on, um, our planet. Plus, I don't think you have witches here..."

"Well," said Doctor Vahlen. "They may be based upon 'magic', but they are certainly a form of technology. We've gotten quite good at reverse engineering."

"I dunno..." Mariya said, looking to Yaira. "You might end up breaking something, and we kind of need them. I do know a fair amount about striker units though, I'm the battalion's back-up field mechanic. Maybe I could help you?"

"It would be appreciated," said Vahlen.

"You can study hers if you want," Yaira said, nodding to Mariya. "But mine is off-limits. And I imagine Ji's is too, until you can find it."

"Speaking of," said Bradford, turning in his chair to look at Ji. "Where is it? And how did you get inside the base?"

"When that second transport returned," said Ji, unknowingly referring to Voodoo Three-One. "I have exceptional stealth capabilities."

"We noticed," Bradford said dryly. "Between the fact that you're still smaller than a standard jet, and whatever stealth measures you employ, our radar might not have caught you at all if it wasn't modified for picking up UFOs. Even then, it was impossible to really track you. We just knew _something_ was headed our way."

"Good." Ji said with a smirk. "I stashed my striker unit inside equipment locker Golf Eight." She pushed back from the table and stood. "Now commander, about those quarters."

"Actually," said Chekov. "There is one other matter I would like to discuss with you first." He saw Ji tense up and look away. "Relax," he said, holding up a hand. "Corporal Raginis, the man you saved, is in the infirmary. He would like to speak with you."

Corporal Josef Raginis lay in the medical bay, his abdomen and part of his face covered in bandages. An IV drip was attached to his arm, but he did not let his state stop him from saluting when the witch entered, looking uncertain. "Ma'am," he said, sitting up straighter despite the tired, scratchy sound of his voice.

Ji returned the salute, looking vaguely amused.

"They've been telling me you're the one who saved me and Burke." The man had a slender, boney face, obviously neglected in its shaving, and deep set eyes. "And blew those bastards to dust bunnies." He rubbed his head. "I should remember most of it, but it's kind of a blur. Probably the shock."

When Ji did not speak, Josef went on. "They say you're from an alternate dimension. Yeah," he managed a smile at the look of surprise on Ji's face. "Rumors travel fast around here. Me, I don't care where you're from. I owe you a drink." He snorted. "Hell, even if you don't look old enough."

"Of the three of us, I'm the only one of age, and only barely," said Ji.

Josef gaped in shock, uttering something that was probably a curse in his native Poland. "How badly is your war going?" He could not seem to fathom teenagers being officers.

Ji blinked, but then shook her head as she grasped what Raginis was referring to. "No, it's a necessity where witches are concerned. Their powers peak at puberty and generally don't last much beyond twenty."

"That's rough."

"You might also want to thank Mariya," said Ji. "One of the the witches. Her ability is power infusion, she gave you one as a stopgap to real medical treatment. She's no Miyafuji, but she's still saved lives. She's from Orussia. She's shorter and..." She chuckled. "Rather sweeter than Yaira, but don't try getting between them."

"You could get some sack time, you know," said Mariya, leaning over the exposed workings of her striker unit's targeting systems. She cast a look over at Yaira, who was leaning rather noticeably against a toolbox.

"I'm fine, really," she protested, rubbing one eye. "Wouldn't be able to sleep in a strange bed."

"You know," Mariya leaned back, holding a ratchet. "I think the locals are starting to rub off on you."

Yaira raised a black eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"The way some of them look," Mariya said quietly, gesturing to one of the guards at the far end of the lab. "Like they're just waiting for something around them to twitch the slightest wrong way, and then they'll shoot first and never bother asking questions."

"That's one way to put it," said a scientist working nearby. His head was shaved and he had a bushy mustache. Despite the greasy machinery he was working with, his white lab coat remained spotless. "But Earth has been under attack for a couple of months now. Not counting all the chaos the aliens have caused on the ground, we've lost twenty field operatives, two countries withdrew from the council, and we nearly lost another pilot the other day. As it is, her interceptor was totaled. They're sending it back to LHM for study to try and figure out how it made it back at all."

Mariya turned and leaned against the side of her striker unit, fondly stroking the side of the machine that had been her companion in many battles. Her blue eyes watched Doctor Vahlen and several other scientists working with the main magazine, studying the pocket effect used to store its rounds. It had been rather amusing watching them remove one arm-sized round after another after another, their shock growing. "How many countries are on the XCOM council?"

"Fifteen at the moment," said the scientist, plucking a tool from a nearby lab bench and making an adjustment.

"Fifteen?" Yaira blinked in surprise. "That's it? I think we had that many represented just at Komatsu."

Mariya bit her lip. "The other countries, India and Argentina in particular, probably thought they could do a better job diverting all their resources to their own protection."

"They're _idiots_," Yaira said flatly. "No country can stand on their own like that."

The scientist chuckled and his mustache twitched. "Ruiz, one of our men from Argentina, said the same thing. He stayed on-board even when his government tried to threaten him into coming home."

"They probably thought he would have made a good candidate for their own defense corps," said Yaira, before stifling a yawn. "Sounds like a good man. Where can I find him?"

"Infirmary," said the scientist. "Plasma burns. Fairly minor, though."

The automatic doors at one of the lab parted as a woman entered, and the sound of an alarm wafted in. "What's that?" Yaira's hand immediately went for her weapon.

"Scrambling fighters," said the scientist, frowning as he turned back to his work. "Must mean there's a UFO over Europe."

"Lieutenant Kim to mission control." An automated female voice issued from speakers throughout the base. "Lieutenant Kim to mission control."

"Let's go," Yaira sprang to her feet, her earlier fatigue apparently forgotten.

"But it was Ji they called for," said Mariya, slowly rising from her work.

"She's still our fellow witch, isn't she?" Yaira turned back. "Besides, just maybe we'll get some action soon."


	3. Chapter 3

The automatic doors of mission control hissed open as Lieutenant Ji Kim strode toward them. The room she found beyond was large and square, standing several stories tall. A few office windows overlooked it, and a massive holographic globe dominated the center of the room. Around it were set multiple workstations, bustling with activity, where people normally checked news feeds, communications, satellite scans, as well as base activity. Currently however, many eyes were neglecting their duties, instead focused on a large display against one wall.

Commander Chekov and Officer Bradford stood before it, and Ji quickly noticed their tension before scrutinizing the screen itself. Two sleek silhouettes were showing approaching a larger one on radar, while telemetry such as distance to target scrawled across the side. The two smaller objects were tagged as Raven six and Raven seven, while the saucer-like bandit was simply marked with a red dot.

"This is Raven six," the voice of one of the interceptor pilots crackled out of speakers around the room. "Now in weapons range. Firing missiles!" The screen flashed again, but the UFO made a hard course correction and the quartet of guided missiles overshot. The proximity fuse of the nearest miss caused it to detonate anyway, inflicting at least some damage to the UFO.

The UFO did not let the slight pass unavenged, and returned fire with scorching plasma. "Shit!" a voice exploded over the radio. "This is Raven seven, my leftside engines are gone, say again, gone!" Raven seven quickly dropped away from the engagement, unable to maintain the near-hypersonic velocities that pursuing UFOs required.

"I'll get him," growled Raven six. "Fox three, fox three!" Two more missiles streaked across the skies, and the UFO again commenced evasive maneuvers. The first missile shot under the vessel, but the second slammed into its side and detonated. The explosion briefly slewed the craft off course, but it kept going.

"Their ships are growing more capable," murmured Chekov, turning around to glance at Ji. He nodded to the witch. "I thought you might like an opportunity to watch our own air power at work."

Ji nodded slowly. "Your jets are definitely faster than I am."

"They'd have to be," said Bradford. "Even with the atmosphere slowing them down, keeping up with ships meant for interstellar travel isn't easy."

"Shooting them down, even harder." Chekov gave a rueful snort. "The alien ships are made from a remarkable alloy, like titanium only lighter and even stronger."

"It would be a major coup if we figured out how to synthesize it," said Bradford. "But in the mean time, we're limited to whatever we can salvage."

Raven six skillfully wove his craft through the saucer's return fire, not an easy thing to do at such velocities, as Ji was quick to note. A witch's smaller profile and reduced mass as compared to a regular fighter jet made it easier, but she knew the skill that pilot must have had.

"It's getting awfully near the base," Bradford said, after glancing at the holographic globe behind them. He touched his headset. "Raven six, can you force it to change course?"

"Affirmative, central," replied the pilot. "I'll try and nudge it away." He swung around to the right and accelerated, trying to make the ship turn hard right to throw him off, but the sectoid scout ship veered left.

"They think like aliens, alright," said Chekov. "Some of our soldiers have a hard time remembering that our foes no longer conform to human norms and tactics."

"Enemy ETA, eight minutes," said Bradford. "Raven six..." He trailed off, realizing Lieutenant Kim was gone. The doors were just hissing shut. He killed his microphone. "Where did she go?"

Chekov merely shrugged. "Perhaps she felt she had seen enough."

Raven six fired his last missile, impacting hard against the UFO. The craft lost speed and began taking its turns far more gingerly, but was still pushing mach four. "Closing to laser range," announced Raven six, firewalling his throttle.

Perhaps the UFO realized Raven six was out of missiles. Perhaps the crew had performed engine repairs. The UFO suddenly leveled out an accelerated, all the while spraying random fire in the direction of the interceptor.

That slowed Raven six down enough for the saucer to start widening the gap again, and Bradford scowled. "We can't let this one get away, sir."

Chekov's expression was guarded but thoughtful. "I am open to suggestions." He knew that six and seven were their only available interceptors over this continent.

"Sir!" a female technician's voice interrupted sharply. "The hangar bay is opening. Local override."

Bradford keyed his headset. "Hangar, this is central. Who the hell just opened the bay doors?"

The control panel to operate the launch catapult for XCOM's interceptors was a complicated affair. Fortunately, Ji did not need it. The witch ran back to the hastily assembled storage rack built earlier to accommodate her striker unit. With practiced ease she slipped her legs into it, and a warmth blossomed in her chest.

The engines spun up with a whine, while tufted feline ears and a bushy, speckled tail sprouted from her head and the small of her back. A glowing blue circle sparked to life on the deck beneath her, the runes within spinning faster as the engines of her striker unit warmed up.

She slipped her earpiece on, and from it projected a wraparound visor display before her eyes. It displayed her remaining ammunition, altitude, coordinates, and numerous other pieces of information, including the veritable mess that was her radar, being inside like this. As she lifted her autocannon from its slot in the rack, its own round count popped onto her display as well.

Ji lifted into the air, careful to keep her thrust limited. At full speed, she could hit mach three, and the blazing hot jet wash could cause extensive damage if she hit the afterburners in here.

"Stop right there!" yelled one of the security officers, leveling his assault rifle at Ji. His eye narrowed grimly as he gazed down his rifle's iron sights, Chekov had given orders to keep eye on the base 'guests' just in case. They were authorized to fire if it was a matter of base security.

Just when the soldier had settled his aim squarely on her chest, he suddenly lost sight of her. "Qui?" the soldier muttered, his rifle lapsing. The whine of her jet engines still filled the hangar, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Ji smirked as the soldier lost sight of her. She had yet to move, but apparently even as used to fighting aliens as these soldiers were, they had not run into enemies that could become invisible on a whim.

Satisfied with her stealth, Ji throttled up and headed skyward. The wonderful freedom of flying tickled at her stomach, but it wasn't long before she had to put it aside and focus. Her radar registered a smear approaching at high speed, that had to be the UFO. Unfortunately, the UFO's top speed was far in excess of what her striker unit was capable of. Even her AMRAAMs would be unable to keep up with it, which wouldn't be a problem with the UFO coming toward her, but her targeting radar was so far refusing to produce a solid lock. Sidewinders might work, but she would only have one chance at it, and she'd have to keep in front of it.

Fortunately, it appeared that the UFO had no better luck tracking Ji than did the human radar. Its approach would take it within a few kilometers of the base. Ambushing it should be easy enough.

The witch could see on her radar that Raven six was still struggling to close the distance with the UFO, unable to get into the much shorter range of its laser cannon with the UFO keeping it under intermittent fire.

With a cold smirk, Ji imagined that the UFO's crew would be feeling pretty good about themselves right now. They were flying in a straight line, and Ji's powerful engines were seconds from putting her in optimal position to cut them off. _It's the danger you _don't _see that gets you_, she thought.

Ji swung into position, flying at just a few hundred miles per hour, above and offset the saucer's approach so they could not actually collide. The rangefinder ticked down rapidly, and once the distance dwindled to the maximum range of her missiles' heat seekers, she fired. Weapons bays on both sides of her striker unit flipped open, firing forth a volley of four missiles.

When objects were on a collision course at supersonic speeds, they tended to meet quickly. There were scant seconds from the launch of the missiles to their explosive impacts, and the aliens had no time to react as the leading edge of their craft suddenly broke apart.

Ji leveled her cannon, following the gunsights projected on her visor. Her finger tightened on the trigger, and a burst of 20 millimeter explosive rounds barked out. They were made for chewing through the tough, crystalline hides of Neuroi, and so were an even match for the alien alloy construction of the saucer. Her shells tore into the holes already rent by the missile impacts, probably overkill as the craft dropped precariously.

Losing power, the saucer tumbled, spitting flame, smoke and debris as it fell. It crashed hard into a mountainside, skidding nearly half a kilometer downhill. Despite the impact and the deep furrow it had dug through dirt, rock, and trees alike, the saucer seemed to have sustained only minimal further damage in the crash.

Raven six streaked overhead, reporting back to base on the condition of the UFO. Chopping back his throttle, the jet circled slowly around before heading away.

"Base, this is Raven six." The pilot's voice was thick with smug satisfaction. "Bandit has been splashed. Transmitting crash site coordinates."

"So that's the power of those witches in air to air battle?" Bradford crossed his arms and frowned. "Hard to believe kids can be that effective..."

"To us, they are children," Chekov admitted. "But they are already hardened warriors."

"Too hard in that girl's case, I think," Bradford's frown deepened. "Her wingmate is missing and you can tell it's eating at her."

"And we can't very well order her to undergo psych eval." Bradford paused and looked thoughtful. "Course, we could always hit her with an arc thrower and strap her into a chair, let the shrinks have a few words with her." He caught Chekov's icy glare.

"So far," said Chekov. "Even the subsequent re-runnings of Doctor Vahlen's DNA analysis have shown all three of these witches to be perfectly human, save for whatever it is that makes them what they are. Metallurgical analysis shows their striker units to be comprised of terrestrial materials as well, though the materials themselves were treated with techniques we don't use here."

"It could be a trojan horse, you know," said Bradford darkly.

"I'm aware," said Chekov evenly. "Hence why, in addition to the guards we have everywhere, I've had security detail following each of them discretely."

"Right," said Bradford with a chuckle. "Okay people, good work," he said, addressing the room at large. "What's the status on Raven seven?"

"Just touched down," said a technician.

"Good," said Bradford. "Let's get together a retrieval team." He was interrupted as the door buzzed.

"Central, this is Rodfa." One of the guards spoke over radio. "There's one of those girls out here wanting to speak with the commander." There was a pause. "Her name is Yaira."

"Put her on," said Chekov.

"They tell me you're going to launch a raid on the UFO crash site," said Yaira, holding the radio handed over by the guard. Privately, she appreciated the security of not letting a barely known stranger into their command center just because she said she wanted to talk to the guy in charge. "I want to join the team."

"Negative," said Chekov at once. "Nothing personal ma'am, but we have plenty of trained operatives who are accustomed to this kind of thing. Not to mention we have no way of transporting your striker unit even this short a distance."

"Oh," Yaira grinned. "I wasn't talking about using my striker unit. Zion trains all of its witches in conventional ground combat as well. If your assault rifles are even remotely like ours, I'll be fine. Plus, that shield trick Kim used? That's a universal witch trait."

Bradford tapped Chekov on the shoulder. "Maybe it would be worth it. They're still struggling to develop improved armor down in the lab. Added protection might stem our casualties some in the mean time."

Chekov's eyebrows knit as he mulled it over. On one hand, the potential benefits were considerable, but on the other it was a girl not even legally old enough to serve in most of this Earth's military forces. "Her shield might help get the man with the arc thrower close enough to stun one of those 'Outsider' types that seem to command the UFOs," Chekov said at last. Vahlen had been getting riled up over the fact that they hadn't caught one yet. Several of the soldiers had suggested that perhaps Vahlen would like to accompany them and be the one getting shot at trying to get close enough to stun an alien. "Yaira, you have a go."

"Thank you, sir."

Ten minutes latter, Yaira was striding up the boarding ramp of the skyranger. She had traded her standard uniform for XCOM's combat armor, which she found rather stifling by comparison. She had transplanted one of her flag patches to the velcro point on the back of the armor's collar, though hers was a bit too small. An assault rifle was slung over her back, while she kept her native pistol in her belt, supplemented by a bandolier of grenades.

"Are you sure you're going to be okay?" Mariya's voice issued from Yaira's witch radio, the tiny earpiece still in place.

"Actually, I'm looking forward to it," she murmured, her voice masked by the sound of ten boots marching up the metal ramp. "Sure, I'd rather have my striker unit, but I want to see how tough these little green men are."

"They're gray," said Mariya, as if it was an important point. "Be careful..."

"Always," the witch grinned roguishly, though the effect was lost. "Keep an eye on Ji, would you?"

"Sure... why?"

"She hasn't been herself since we," Yaira paused, trying to think of the right word. "Dimension shuffled."

"We might never see our homes again," Mariya pointed out. "I'd say that's grounds for being a little off."

"I suppose," Yaira ran a hand through her hair as she sat down and strapped in. "But still, she's worried about Lisbeth."

"We are too," said Mariya. "But we're here. We might as well put our strengths to good use and help these people."

As she sat in the skyranger's passenger compartment, Yaira had to admit it was more advanced than most transports she was accustomed to. A craft capable of vertical take off and landing as well as hypersonic flight was a marvel of engineering. It was just too cute to imagine Mariya, the machinery and engineering nerd that she was, fawning over the skyranger or admiring its plans, diagrams that would just be nonsense to Yaira.

Her eyes swept among the other four occupants, and she realized they were all looking at her. She had to admit she'd be curious too were the situation reversed, wondering what the teenager was doing with a hardened combat squad.

"Right," said a man with a thick, rich voice. The badge on the breast of his armor was a shield set with three stars, marking him a captain. "I do not know how they do things in your military, but I expect you to follow orders. Don't play hero. I want all of us to come home."

"Yes, sir," said Yaira, feeling her stomach sink slightly as the skyranger pushed up out of the hangar with its great thrust. She smugly noted that several of the greener soldiers showed visible queasiness at the sudden onset of g-forces.

With the crash site only a score of kilometers from the base, the skyranger did not bother reaching cruise altitude or going hypersonic. Minutes later the transport was touching down near the crash site. "Operation is a go," the cool voice of pilot Alan "Big Sky" Smith announced over their radios. The boarding ramp lowered, and the five soldiers darted out. Safeties came off and weapons clattered as their first rounds were chambered.

They found themselves in a forested area, lit with the warmth of the afternoon sun. The five spread out, advancing carefully with Captain Marceau in the lead with his shotgun. A heavy moved to the man's right, while Yaira moved on his left. The sniper and medic followed, forming the base of the loose triangle.

A shadow flitted between trees to the left. Yaira swung her weapon around, narrowing her eyes. The shape had looked vaguely man-shaped. "What are those skinnies called?" she asked over her XCOM radio.

"Thin men," replied the sniper. "Yeah, there's one in the trees over there."

"I can take him out," said the heavy, nodding to her rocket launcher.

"Don't waste the firepower on something like that," said the captain. "Glen, take... Nafshi and -"

Their conversation was interrupted as a bolt of blazing plasma passed just over the captain's head. Cursing loudly, he scrambled for cover as Glen laid down suppressing fire with her machine gun. Splinters exploded from a tree as the thin man scrambled away from it. It made a small and speedy target, but could not survive against sustained automatic fire. Its spindly body was also frail, and it crumpled to the ground in a bloody mess.

The team worked their way closer to the downed saucer, finding it in the midst of a large grassy clearing. The hull was largely smooth and disclike, but it had a number of groves and ridges, tracing patterns across its surface. For some strange reason, a portion of the hull that didn't even seem damaged was covered by a glistening energy barrier. "Contact!" barked the sniper, spotting a pair of floaters skulking on top of the wrecked ship. The legless, frankenstein-esque cyborgs roared, leveling plasma rifles at the squad. Shots sprayed out, the floaters apparently operating on 'ready, fire, aim,' their plasma impacts quickly tracking closer to the group.

A crack split the air, and a high velocity high caliber slug split one floater's skull. The sniper gave a frosty smile as he cycled the bolt of his rifle, already swinging his scope around to target the second floater as most of the squad spread out. Before he could get his sights on target, the second floater was struck by several rounds. One of its engines was damaged, sending the creature drifting sideways before it dropped to the ground.

Flopping about, the floater snapped off a few more shots before several bursts drilled into its chest and head, finishing it.

Yaira lowered her rifle, smoke curling from the barrel. Unfortunately, smoke was also curling from the scorched shoulder armor of the squad's heavy, Sergeant Glen. The woman's teeth were clenched in pain at the severe burn, and the medic was quick to inject painkillers and apply a topical spray that would seal and protect the wound. "I can still fight," insisted the wounded soldier.

The captain nodded. "Soong," he said to the sniper. "Cover us as we approach." The team flitted toward the wrecked UFO, encountering no further resistance but remaining wary. Marceau slapped the panel to open the force field door at the saucer's entrance. Glen and Yaira swept in, covering one another as they entered but finding nothing.

"Soong, move up. Everyone, inside," said the captain. "Good thing," he said to Yaira. "Every ship has the exact same layout. The paths here," he indicated to the branch before him. "Circle around the outside of the ship's center. Where they converge is the ship's bridge."

The team split up, three going around one way while two went the other. The ship was almost eerily quiet, and Yaira found her attention drifting. Inside, it was just apparent how sturdily built the ship was. A human aircraft would surely be a burning wreck after an impact like that, but some of the interior sections looked completely undamaged.

"In position," reported Glen, as she, the medic, and Yaira took position outside a door near the ship's center.

"Copy that," said Marceau, in position on the opposite side of the ship with the sniper. "Three, two -" His voice was suddenly lost in a wash of static.

"Captain?" Glen keyed her radio. "Captain!" A warbling whine came from the radio instead.

"Jamming," Yaira bit out the word like a curse. "They did it at Fuso as well..."

The sound of plasma weapons firing echoed through the ship. "They're in trouble," Glen said grimly. "We'll circle around."

Swiveling, furry ears appeared from the sides of Yaira's head, and a cotton-clump tail slipped out from under the bottom of her vest. "No time," Yaira slammed her fist into the door control. Despite her blows being sufficient to dent steel, the panel simply lit up and chimed. The glimmering, opaque film that formed the door curled away, and Yaira plunged into the room.

The large, square chamber sat at the center of the ship, inhabited by a trio of pasty gray sectoids with their bulbous heads and tiny, scrawny bodies. With the plasma pistols fixed to their forearms, they swept the other side of the room with fire. The opposite door was already open, and the unit's sniper lay sprawled on the ground. The captain was crouched behind the doorway, pinned down by withering fire. Even the unnaturally durable alien alloy was melting under the ferocity of the plasma bombardment.

Yaira drew a grenade one-handed and yanked the pin with her teeth, her magically enhanced strength and all around toughness making the stylized feat possible. One of the sectoids let out a high, warbling cry of surprise when it looked down and saw that the object that had bounced into its leg was a grenade. The creature's shock did not last long however, as the explosion reduced it to pulp, as well as giving a fatal shrapnel shower to one of the adjacent sectoids.

Two sectoids had been killed in about as many seconds, and the last one, wounded by a burning chunk of metal in its left arm, spun to face the new threat. Its eyes widened as it saw Yaira level her assault rifle, and a series of quick bursts put the alien down.

Something slammed Yaira hard from behind. Heat washed over her as she was thrown to the ground, her squadmates crying out in alarm as they saw her take several plasma blasts to the back. A tall, lithe form wrapped in fiery orange energy marched out of the command center, continuing to fire at the fallen witch.

Glen squeezed the trigger on her machine gun, sweeping a spray of bullets toward the Outsider. In her mind, Yaira must already be dead. Casualty rates were high among XCOM, and soldiers had to learn to cope with it, to expect it even as they fought against it every day. But that loss only made capturing the wretched thing alive all the more important. If they were going to lose someone, it was going to be worth it.

A few bullets pinged off the outsider's armor, making it stumble backward. Glen lowered the machine gun and reached for the boxy arc thrower on her belt. It worked with a surge of extreme voltage designed to disrupt brain functions, sacrificing finesse for brute force and near universal effectiveness. Unfortunately, it had a maximum range of only a few meters.

Seeing what she was doing, the captain yelled for cover fire. Despite the tide of fire trying to drive it to cover, the outsider saw the weapon Glen drew. The muzzle of its plasma rifle swept toward her, and it squeezed the firing mechanism.

Motion blurred at Glen from her left, and a wall of blue appeared between her and the alien. Plasma splashed harmlessly against Yaira's shield, shot after shot until the creature hesitated, lowering its weapon. "Now!" yelled Yaira, lowering her shield. Glen fired the arc thrower, the tendrils of electricity tracing over the outsider's smooth armor. The creature stumbled and staggered, dropping its weapon. The orange corona around it flickered erratically before abruptly extinguishing. The armor disintegrated, leaving only the abandoned plasma rifle and a strange, glimmering shard upon the ground.

Captain Marceau limped over as Yaira moved ahead, intent on policing the rest of the downed craft. "So, we finally got one of their commanders," he said. "Good. I hope Vahlen learns a lot from it."

"But it's just a crystal now," said Glen, shaking her head. "We can't interrogate a chunk of glass." She watched Yaira as the witch poked her head into the next room. Several patches of Yaira's armor had been burned completely away, but rather than burned and blackened skin beneath, she appeared to have little worse than a mild sunburn.

Looking back, Yaira caught her looking. "Metal skin, my witch power. I can take a direct hit from my own main gun, no shield, and keep walking."

"Maybe we can't interrogate a shard," said Marceau. "But Vahlen on the other hand, I think she could get a moon rock to talk."

"He's alive!" called the medic, kneeling over the sniper. He had taken a hit to the chest, and was unconscious though his breathing was shallow and his pulse unsteady. "But barely! I'll try to stabilize him, if he can hang on until we get back to base..."

Marceau nodded to the medic. "Yaira, give me a hand. We'll carry Sinclair here back to the 'ranger."

"No need," Yaira walked back over and slung her rifle. "I can carry him myself." The squad looked at her in disbelief, at least until she hoisted the injured sniper onto her shoulder as if he weighed a quarter of what he did.

"Yaira, Yaira, are you okay?" the panicked voice in the witch's ear made her hesitate until she realized it was coming from her witch communicator.

"I'm here, Mariya," she said smoothly. "What's-?"

"The command center is in a panic," said Mariya. "They lost contact about the time you breached the last chamber."

"Right, the radio jamming," Yaira bit back a curse. "Guess it doesn't work on our communicators, eh?"

"Y-yeah," Mariya said shakily. "What's happening?"

"Cooper is hurt bad, and Glen is wounded but still on her feet. All threats neutralized."

Mariya breathed an audible sigh of relief over the radio. "Thank goodness. I'll let them know."


	4. Chapter 4

**XCOM Headquarters, Central Europe**

Yaira Nafshi paused outside the door to Ji's room. The sky witch had the chamber to herself, whereas Yaira herself shared a room with Mariya next door. Next to the door was a nameplate, identifying the occupant as Lieutenant Ji Kim, accompanied by her chosen XCOM callsign, Siren Two. The tanker rapped her knuckles on the door's metal frame.

"Who is it?"

"It's Yaira," said the witch, leaning against the doorframe. She waited, expecting the door to open. "Ji, can we talk?"

"We're talking right now." Even muffled through the door, Yaira could hear the sour sarcasm in Ji's voice.

Yaira's mouth worked, trying to articulate a response if Ji was going to be this damn literal about everything. Before she got the words together, the door slid open. "Finally," said Yaira, folding her arms and stepping inside before Ji could change her mind.

Despite having been the sole occupant of the room and for just a few days at that, Ji seemed to have made quite the mess. She was still wearing her original uniform, rumpled and stained, and empty food containers were stacked on the desk. Magazines were strewn about the floor.

The flight witch seemed to be tucking something in the pocket of her uniform, and was several seconds before she turned toward Yaira.

"C'mon Ji, lighten up," said Yaira, putting on a smile. "Me and Mariya are hanging out with some of the XCOM soldiers down in the mess hall."

"I know," said Ji, not moving from where she was seated on the bed. She drew her knees tightly up to her chest. "Thanks, but I'm not interested." She waved Yaira away, her expression glum despite her efforts to be polite.

"Ji..." Yaira brushed back a stray lock of hair. "I know the commander gave you a pretty good chewing out for launching without orders, but you can't just sulk in your quarters about it."

Ji's teeth clenched, and as her eyes glanced toward the wall, her glare ought to have been intense enough to blast right through the concrete.

"'We need to work together, not just in the same direction. That means following our chain of command,'" Yaira quoted. "You and Mariya seem to be all for helping these people..."

"You don't have a clue." Ji shook her head. "Get out. Now."

"You'd feel better if you weren't cooped up in here all day," said Yaira. "At least go topside and get a little fresh air."

"I don't want to go outside," Ji bit off the words, rising to her feet and stalking toward the taller witch. Despite their height difference, the accompanying death glare was enough to make Yaira back up a step.

Yaira frowned, her suspicions confirmed. "Look, we're all missing people right now," she began, but Ji raised her voice and spoke over the tanker.

"And I'd be fine missing you, you heartless idiot! **Get out!**"

The lynx ears and tail sprouting from Ji's hair and waist, accompanied by the magical aura starting to ripple around her convinced Yaira that a tactical maneuver in a new direction was called for. The door hissed shut as Yaira left, and a fist of impotent frustration slammed into the frame.

Ji sagged against the door, scrubbing her face with her other hand. "Lisbeth..." she murmured. She turned her back to the door and slid listlessly to the ground before drawing her knees tightly to her chest again.

A shaking hand withdrew the glossy but speckled photograph that she had always kept close. Once, it filled her with feelings of warmth, but now it was just a knife in the jagged wound of loss. Still she looked at it, hoping that light would chase out the darkness again.

It had been taken by a fellow witch from the 309th Expeditionary Air Wing, the Storm Ravens. Little Elina Howha of Suomos loved taking pictures of everything, and had taken this particular image after Lisbeth had scored her 30th kill. In that frozen image of happiness, Ji sat side by side with Lisbeth, the Karlslander's long red hair silky smooth, her brown eyes softened with warmth from their normal steeliness, her uniform traded for casual civilian dress, as they were out having ice cream from a local place as a special treat from Ji.

Bad things happened in war, and Ji always thought she would be ready. She never realized it would hurt this much.

An XCOM soldier snickered as Yaira strode back into the mess hall, looking rattled. "What's the matter, run into a bear on the way down here?"

"Close enough," said Yaira, rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly. She sat down next to Mariya, who was leaned over an e-reader, somehow absorbing both the tablet's text and participating in the conversation around her. A half dozen or so of the soldiers had gathered adjacent to Mariya's table, evidently finding her fascinating. Others watched from a distance, as if not quite sure what to think of them, while others ignored the witches altogether. "I tried talking to Ji about coming down here and relaxing with us... I thought she would be kind of able to set aside Lisbeth, I mean, we're all in the same boat..." She swept back a lock of her hair. "At first I figured it was about Chekov chewing her out, until she got all frosty with me for saying it."

"What?" Mariya looked up. "Yaira..." she said, her voice thick with exasperation.

"What!?" said Yaira defensively.

The Orussian witch slapped Yaira hard on the side, making her flinch. "Chekov didn't have anything to do with it," said Mariya, pointing a finger at Yaira. "Honestly, you're so dense sometimes!"

"I-I'm not dense!" protested Yaira, but there was a lost look in her eyes.

"Sure you're not a boy underneath it all?" Mariya said, arching her eyebrows and fixing Yaira with a look.

"Hey, hey," said one of the soldiers, a man with thick, dark hair and a Spanish sway to his voice. "Not all men are jerks, yeah?"

Mariya gave Yaira a sharp poke. "Honestly, you wookie! We still don't know what happened to Lisbeth! She didn't come through with us. She could still be back home safe and sound or she could be... And Ji has had nothing to do but sit around the last few days and think about it."

Yaira reddened. "But that stuff happens..." she said, simultaneously looking angry with herself. She should have been more thoughtful, she was homesick herself, and it didn't help that those in their home reality had to think they were all dead. Yaira sighed and slumped forward. She had learned not to dwell on the things she couldn't control and focus on what she could, but it seemed Ji was having a harder time.

"Shit happens, but that doesn't mean we have to like it," said a deep voice. A very blocky-looking man with dark skin and a rakish mustache approached the table. "And doesn't stop it from cutting deep." Spinning a chair around, he sat down heavily at the end of the table. "Name's Ruiz," he nodded to the two witches. "Don't believe we've met."

"He's the senior XCOM field officer," said a woman sitting nearby. "He's still with us even though his country withdrew from XCOM a few weeks back."

Ruiz gave a dismissive snort. "Idiots. They really think they can hold off an invasion by themselves?"

"Oh," Yaira's eyes lit up as she looked over at Ruiz. "One of the scientists was telling me about you."

"Yeah," Ruiz flashed a grin. "They wanted me back. I told them XCOM was humanity's best hope, and made an anatomically impossible suggestion relative to their mating habits."

Yaira gave a hearty laugh, while Mariya's giggle was quickly stifled into an embarrassed cough.

"So what are you reading now?" Yaira leaned over, looking at the tablet Mariya had before her on the table.

"Another history book," said the woman who had spoken up earlier. "Apparently trying to figure out how your history is different than ours."

Mariya nodded deftly. "They don't have witches on this Earth, and they've never seen Neuroi. I wonder if the two are somehow connected."

"Correlation doesn't always mean causation," noted one trooper.

"And," Mariya went on. "Their borders and country names have been different for centuries. And," Mariya brandished the e-reader at Yaira like a sharp implement. "You should apologize to Ji at some point. She's feeling terrible as it is and misunderstanding her would have just hurt her more."

"Yes, yes," said Yaira, exasperated, going red again.

"Don't sweat it," said Mariya. "But remember for next time."

Yaira saw a labcoat-clad figure enter the room and make a beeline for the coffee pot. It was Doctor Vahlen, engrossed in her tablet. Immediately the tanker's eyes narrowed in distaste, and her right hand twitched slightly before she realized she'd been reflexively reaching for her sidearm. Yaira hadn't forgiven the woman for what she had almost done to Mariya. Yaira's thoughts were not for exacting revenge, but she was on a hair trigger for anyone trying a stupid stunt like that again.

"Down, girl," said Mariya, her tone chiding yet playful.

Yaira sighed and rubbed her nose. Mariya had always been quick to forgive, but Yaira still got an unsettling feeling from Doctor Vahlen. The scientist seemed a little _too_ eager when it came to her usually fatal interrogations, and had been perfectly willing to assume the odd girls were aliens too at first.

Ruiz saw where Yaira was looking. "Supposedly they figured out that piece of the Outsider you took back is like an antenna or something. They're hoping to use it to tap the aliens' communications, maybe figure out what they're up to, where they're hiding."

A server came by, depositing several kinds of alcohol requested by the troops, who were all off duty. Ruiz downed his whiskey in one shot, before exhaling a sigh. There was still some tension in his stance, and Yaira had noticed a similar subtle stiffness in many of the others. Even when they laughed or cracked a grin, the tension was still there. It was easy to see their morale wasn't the best.

"They let you drink?" said Yaira, raising an eyebrow and nodding to Ruiz's empty glass.

"Yeah," said Ruiz. "Can't keep us all on edge all the time, otherwise we'd get dull." He set his shot glass down firmly on the table. "Hell, I'm sure it's the same for you witches. It's always been like this for soldiers, 95 percent sitting around waiting for something to happen."

"And five percent 'Oh my god, I'm going to die!'" chipped in one of the other soldiers with gloomy cheer.

"Yep," said Yaira. "During the first Neuroi war they ran like clockwork for months, but they started coming more erratically later in the war, and that's continued now."

Allowing her dark eyes to wander around the mess hall, Yaira found them drawn to a small table against the wall. Numerous photographs were pinned to a corkboard, and a knife had been stabbed into the tabletop.

"That," said Ruiz, following her gaze. "Our memorial wall. We've lost good people... but even barely holding on like we have is huge when the enemy has ray guns and spaceships." He whistled for the server. "One more round," he said, dropping a wad of bills on the table. The server bustled over.

"To absent friends," said Ruiz, raising his new glass. "To new ones." He glanced to the witches. "And to kicking ET's skinny gray behind all the way back to whatever hole he crawled from."

"Ooh rah!" called one soldier.

"We die, we do not surrender," said another.

"Where we are, there is victory," chimed in third.

**Komatsu Air Base, Fuso**

Lisbeth Wilcke stumped slowly through one of the corridors of the Fuso Air Defense Force base Komatsu. It was a clear night, and quiet reigned over much of the base. A cracked collarbone had the redhead's arm in a sling, and her ribs were still bruised and tender from her last sortie. It had seemed like as ordinary a mission as there ever was, with four witches deployed to intercept a Neuroi coming in from the west. The gleaming black extraterrestrial had been on the ropes, but then its beam volleys collided with Liz's own energy pulse. Wilcke's energy pulse ability took a lot out of her, but more out of a Neuroi. A few times she had even managed to one-shot a Neuroi with it, but she had never seen anything like this last time before.

She had woken up in the infirmary, where the doctor nervously informed her that while the area was littered with Neuroi fragments, no sign had been found of Ji Kim, Yaira Nafshi, or Mariya Voronkova, not even scrap from their striker units. That incident had been almost a week ago now. Lisbeth wanted desperately to fly out there again and look for herself, however hopeless it might be, but in her injured state she was grounded.

As frustration bubbled up inside her, Liz made an angry fist, but the tensing muscles sent spikes of agony through her chest and shoulder. Gasping at the pain, Liz forced herself to relax.

"Cap'n!" The clatter of combat boots behind her made Lisbeth turn ponderously, leery of further jarring her injuries. A tiny blonde witch stopped and saluted her senior.

"Elina?" said Lisbeth, returning the salute with her left hand. The junior witch's salute was technically unnecessary as Lisbeth was out of uniform, but Elina was an enthusiastic stickler.

"I'm just off night watch," said the Sumousan witch. "Even though the radar was quiet I convinced them to let me do a little flying out near the coast." At that, Lisbeth couldn't help but smile in gratitude, knowing that Elina had gone out that way to try and search for some sign of their missing witches. Dedicated search parties had been combing the area, but it didn't sit right with some of the witches not to be personally involved when comrades were missing in action.

Despite being fifteen years old, Elina Howha of Sumous was still short of five feet tall and possessed only slightly more curves than a pencil. Her hair was platinum blond and longer than conventional regulation permitted. She was also the best shot on the base, her violet eyes unbelievably keen and her hands rock steady whether she was hefting her anti-materiel rifle or the compact digital camera clipped to the front of her uniform.

"Wilcke, why are you up this early?" asked Elina.

"Up?" Lisbeth echoed vaguely. "I never went to bed." She rubbed her face tiredly and looked out one of the windows in the corridor. Sure enough, she could see color starting to bleed onto the horizon. The witch gave a dry, tired curse in her native tongue.

"C'mon," Elina said kindly. "You need to rest."

Lisbeth sighed. She knew she should, but she didn't feel like it. The feeling gnawed at her gut that if she just went out looking, she would find her missing friends. It was illogical, and probably fueled just by desperation, but...

Leaning on little Elina, Lisbeth started toward her room. But as they reached the next intersection, a spine-chilling sound rang through the entire base. The low, resonating wail of a klaxxon warned everyone for miles that a Neuroi was inbound. Both witches knew at that very moment another alarm was being heard in the stand-by barracks, signaling the alert squadron to scramble. All around the base, other personnel were also running to combat stations, giving the whole facility the appearance of an ant hill that had just been kicked.

Elina gave a huff. "If it had come half an hour ago, I would be heading up right now." She looked up at Lisbeth. "And I imagine bed is now off your agenda... off to the command center?"

Three teenaged girls clad in full witch flight gear sprinted out into the hangar bay, then quickly clambered up the racks that supported their striker units. One by one each Storm Raven dropped in, her legs dematerializing and the engines slowly whining to life. Visors came up, and the girls ran final weapons checks. Radio reports from the command center came in over their earpieces.

"Confirm one Neuroi. Inbound from the northwest at 600 knots," said a cool voice. "No other contacts. Cleared to engage. Good luck out there."

"Copy that," said the flight leader. "One shiner, subsonic. Switches on, ladies. Any problems?"

"All's green. I'm good to go!"

"ECM online, ready for combat output. Ammunition 100%. Ready."

Hot air rippled from the striker units' jet engines as they warmed up. The support racks retracted, and the girls headed out through the opening hangar doors and onto the runway. Blue circles blossomed on the ground as the witches throttled up and roared into the predawn sky. "Viking Flight, taking off," said the flight leader.

"Let's get them," growled one witch. "For Ji." The air crackled as the trio went supersonic, intent on intercepting the Neuroi before it got within weapons range of the coast.

"Scanning for the core," announced the Electronics Warfare specialist.

"Alright," said the flight leader. "Commence attack -"

"Whoa!" interrupted the third witch, watching the radar contact abruptly bank toward them an accelerate.

"Lock on and fire!" barked the flight leader. "Fox three!" A pair of radar-guided AIMW-120 AMRAAMs popped out of internal bays and dropped away from the flight leader's fuselage. Instants later, their rocket motors ignited and the homing projectiles accelerated to supersonic speeds, outstripping the witch as one of her wingmates also loosed a pair of missiles. Four vapor trails raced out across the sky, finding by radar a contact the witches were still too far out to see.

Distant explosions blossomed in the night sky, highlighting a rapidly approaching form. Notably lacking however were the telltale white sparkles that came from blasting holes in a Neuroi's tough crystalline hide.

"Missiles were intercepted," the flight leader gave a terse report to ground control. "Set jamming to maximum and prepare another salvo."

Lisbeth and Elina flashed their identification cards to the MPs standing guard outside Komatsu base's command center. Entering, they found the bunker a quiet, focused hub of activity. A large screen against one wall showed the approaching Neuroi as a large blip, the witches as smaller blips, and their missiles as dots smaller still.

"They've gotten better at intercepting missiles," rumbled a man who was quite noticeable even in the midst of it all. He wore the uniform of a JASDF Lieutenant General, and had hair that was as much salt as pepper. The man was not tall, but he had a slight forward hunch, giving the impression he was looking impressively down on someone, even if they were taller than he.

Hearing the witches walk up behind him, General Tsukioka turned to face Lisbeth and Elina. "Ah," said the aging general, inclining his head. "I suspected you might come." His eyes lingered on Lisbeth. "Allow me to express my personal condolences," he said quietly. Startled, Lisbeth nodded, but the general had already turned back to the main display.

"New contacts!" barked one technician. "Neuroi has deployed drones. Drones accelerating to intercept the witches." The board lit up again as the witches loosed another wave of missiles. The drones moved to shoot down the missiles, but it appeared that the electronic countermeasures deployed by one of the witches hindered them. Only two of the missiles dropped off the display before impact, though one clipped a drone rather than carrying on to the original target.

"Impact!" reported one of the witches, her voice radiating satisfaction. "Drones closing. Locked on. Fox two!"

Dark cubical shapes closed with the witches. On each of their leading surfaces was a single red hexagon, and one by one they began to glow brightly. Lances of energy slashed out, forcing the witches into evasive action. The sidewinders they had launched earlier closed the remaining distance to the drones. Several scored direct hits, vaporizing drones outright. Another drone broke hard, causing the missile to shoot by it until the proximity fuse triggered and detonated it anyway. Shrapnel peppered the drone, slewing it off course and making it an easy target for the flight leader's machine gun.

In the distance, the single AMRAAM struck the Neuroi. Even from this distance, the creature's shriek of rage was faintly audible. Its surviving drones remained engaged to the witches, trying to spear the electronic warfare specialist with repeated shots. The witch raised her shield for protection, the revolving blue barrier warding off the weaker attacks of the drones.

A drone zipped around to her flank and closed to point-blank range, intending to fire around the witch's shield.

"No you don't!" A silvery blur transposed itself between drone and witch, and the flight leader raised her shield. Repeated shots impacted against it, and the flight leader throttled up. The drone's firing took on an almost frantic intensity in the seconds before the flight leader slammed into it, knocking the drone backward. She squeezed the trigger on her FN MAG machine gun, delivering a close range burst as she dropped her shield. The Neuroi drone broke apart into white sparkles, and a quick check of her radar told the flight leader that was the last of them.

"Core located," reported the electronic warfare specialist. Her visor flickered as it highlighted a particular point on the Neuroi's odd form. The invader's shell was angular and narrow, with two protrusions from the lower edges, trailing like fins. Were it not for the creature's great size and how energy-reflective Neuroi hide tended to be, the overall geometry might have given it good stealth characteristics. To her team, the witch sent an image of the Neuroi's underside, near its back edge, and the luminous heart the creature hid within its shell.

"Right, let's hit it before it spawns any more drones," said the flight leader. She glanced at her remaining missile count. Fortunately, with the use of pocket dimensions, a single witch could carry a number of missiles that would normally take half a squadron. Her headset chirped briefly as she renewed her missile lock; painting something the size of a Neuroi was seldom difficult. "Good tone. Alright you two, ripple-fire AMRAAMs." She paused for scant seconds. "Fox three!" The flight leader watched her missile count drop by eight, joining a total of twelve other missiles outbound from her wingmates.

The Neuroi held its course but decelerated, and the warship-sized invader powered up its weapon. Red flashed along its length as the Neuroi prepared to fire, and ruby-red lances of light, thicker and more powerful than those generated by the drones, pulsed out.

As red light played across the sky in a desperate shield, several of the missiles exploded or were simply vaporized. The remainder slammed into the Neuroi, sending shockwaves rippling across its surface, spitting off fragments even as fiery explosions chewed through the leading edge. The Neuroi wobbled in the air and dipped sharply, and then the final wave of missiles impacted, ripping open the Neuroi's belly and exposing its vulnerable core.

"On my wing!" the flight leader barked to the other interceptor. "We're going in!" The witches twisted gracefully through the air, dropping altitude as they closed the distance for a missile shot to to the belly that would finish off the Neuroi before it could regenerate.

Listing hard, the Neuroi continued to lose altitude, dropping toward the coastline. Red beaded up along the creature's sides as it prepared a volley in a last-ditch effort to stave off its own demise, and the two closing witch interceptors rolled apart and raised their shields.

The Neuroi fired, lighting the dawn sky up with brilliant streams of red. The flight leader winced before her visor compensated for the sudden glare. When the light faded, she was certain her eyesight must have still been impaired because of what she saw. Or rather, what she didn't see. The Neuroi was gone. Not reduced to powdery white shards dead, but simply not there anymore _gone_. "What!?" Her eyes snapped up to her radar, only to find it showed nothing but the other two witches up with her. "How? Komatsu base, this is Viking Flight lead, what the hell just happened? Where's that shiner?"

"This is Komatsu control." Even over the radio, the speaker's bewilderment was audible and confused shouts were audible in the background. "We've lost the bandit. Radar's clear to eight hundred klicks."


	5. Chapter 5

**USS Leyte Gulf, coastal waters of Japan**

The Land of the Rising Sun was presently living up to its name. Dawn was breaking, the sky a rainbow of warm colors as the fierce orange sun rose higher. Not that Ensign Reynolds could see any of it, squirreled away deep in the Combat Information Center of the guided missile cruiser upon which she served. She'd been among the crew's night watch, keeping an eye out for saucers and any other threats that might threaten the United States Navy's Carrier Strike Group Two or its charges.

Tapping her foot, Reynolds thought it wasn't a bad plan. Several months ago, strange craft had begun appearing in the skies. Aliens. If she hadn't seen the footage of crash sites and autopsies herself, she might never have believed it. In response, there had been an increase of military activity worldwide by several orders of magnitude. Among many plans put into motion was Operation Valiant Alliance, calling for US Navy carrier strike groups to be dispatched around the world, supplementing the defenses of their allies. Group two, with the USS George H.W. Bush as its flagship, had been dispatched to Japan.

"Too bad we haven't seen more action, eh?" said Lieutenant Commander Stark, the officer sipping from a mug of coffee as he passed behind Reynolds. Pausing, he leaned on the back of her chair, casually inspecting the radar displays.

"You have a point, sir," said Reynolds, the tapping of her foot increasing. "Since we arrived there's only been the one bogey, and someone beat us to it."

Stark stared thoughtfully into his coffee. "Yeah. Thing is, no one knows who those guys are." He referred not to the aliens, but to the mysterious khaki and green-clad forces who had been fighting around the globe wherever the aliens appeared. It was assumed that the high-speed interceptors splashing UFOs were theirs as well. "Their jets are faster and better armed, and their people are pros."

"All countries are still officially denying involvement?"

"Except for a few trying to claim credit for the whole thing, yeah." Stark laughed. "And we have not-quite-official orders to let them do their thing."

"I'm in the betting pool that they're mercs. Think of how much money could be made off alien technology."

"_Anyone_ could prof – hold on," Stark abruptly changed tack as he leaned closer. One of the displays had just flashed a warning about increasing electromagnetic interference. The reading steadily increased, and then a tone sounded from the console.

"Radar contact!" reported another sailor. "It's – damn, it's big!"

Stark stared at the readout, briefly suspecting that it had to be malfunctioning. The size and dispersal pattern suggested a warship, but it was thousands of feet in the air and moving at a high subsonic speed – much lower than most of the saucers had been tracked at.

"Could be a new type," said Stark, thinking out loud. "Whatever it is, it's headed this way. Battle stations!"

* * *

Thousands of feet up and still some twenty miles away, a confused and battered Neuroi was regenerating damage from the witches' punishing salvos. The invader had certainly detected the anomaly that had engulfed it, but its geographic position remained unchanged. The witches attacking it were gone, but it had detected a group of surface ships nearby. Strange. They hadn't been there before. Deciding they would make as good a target as any, the Neuroi turned lazily toward them, the breaches in its shell quickly closing up. Its only real concern was the sudden loss of contact with the hive, but it could worry about that in a few minutes after the ships were all blazing wrecks.

Dozens of contacts took to the air, quickly vectoring toward the Neuroi. They kept their distance, circling around rather than closing in.

* * *

"Any idea what the hell that thing is?" wondered the WSO in one of the lead Super Hornets sent to deal with the apparent invader. "Doesn't look like any of the pictures I've seen of the saucers. They haven't sent down anything that big before."

"It's slow, too," said one of the other aviators, his voice almost singsong with amusement. "What do you say we buzz it with our cannons?"

"Cut the chatter," barked Commander Ellis, the squadron's leader. "Let's keep it simple. Lock on, one AMRAAM each. Fire on my signal." The tone of a solid lock filled his ears, and he waited several moments for his squadron to follow suit. "Fox three!" As one, the F/A-18-F's each cut loose with a single missile. Smoky white exhaust trails shot into the distance, aiming toward the ominous black shape angling toward the squadron.

As the missiles closed, red suddenly flashed from the invader. Several missiles, caught in the energy wash, were vaporized before they could detonate. But explosions rippled across the Neuroi's hull, spraying white shards in all directions.

"Ha ha!" crowed one of the pilots, seeing the way the Neuroi heeled sideways and sank toward the ocean. "We got 'em! We got 'em!" His cheers were joined by those of other aviators, but Ellis simply gazed at his sensor readouts and frowned.

He oriented a visual sensor toward the shroud of smoke surrounding the UFO. Then the smoke began to clear. "My god," he whispered. Before his eyes, the craters blasted into the UFO were closing again.

"We have incoming!" A dozen contacts had appeared on radar, moving quickly out from the UFO in their directions.

"Ready sidewinders, go!" barked Ellis, several of his aviators already launching the medium-range heatseekers. Where the main UFO was hulking and slow by the standards of aircraft, the smaller ones were faster and more nimble, screaming to mach two and closing the distance to the fighters rapidly. Ruby red lances flashed from the fronts of the cubical craft, slicing through three of his super hornets with ease. More explosions lit up the sky as sidewinders hit their targets, including at least one that had been launched by a plane now reduced to red-hot metal fragments raining toward the ocean below.

The sky became a tangle of gray super hornets and black drones, cannon tracers, exhaust trails, and energy beams flashing back and forth in a spectacle reminiscent of dogfighting thought dead repeatedly over the last several decades.

"_Bush_, this is Longbow lead," said Ellis. "Things are getting messy up here, Uniform has launched fighters and has some kind of regenerative armor."

"Affirmative, Longbow lead. Additional squadrons are en-route to assist. Surface group is preparing missiles for salvo."

Ellis couldn't help a grim smile behind his mask. If the enemy could regenerate from some damage, the most logical answer was to hit it as hard as possible. He looked down at his board and grimaced, seeing that he'd lost two more fighters. A wave of missiles ripped into the cubical enemy fighters from the side, as two squadrons of Hornets joined the fray. The party, it seemed, was just growing in size, as a new wave of enemies was also inbound.

Text scrolled across Ellis's screen, indicating that the strike group's surface ships were nearly done readying their missiles. The jet squadrons were supposed to fire first, and then if yet more firepower was necessary to scratch the regenerating bandit, the ships would launch.

Ellis keyed a channel that would give him all four squadrons. "Longbows, Firehawks, Crimson Hammers, transmitting data for strike on primary target. Iron Rhinos, keep the bandits busy." A string of affirmatives came back.

A countdown started at ten seconds on his screen, mimicked by the rest of the wing. As the bird swung onto target, the sound of a clean tone filled the cockpit. The countdown bottomed out. "Fox three!" The sky was awash in the smoke and flame of numerous missile launches, as three full squadrons of strike fighters fired their entire remaining supply of AMRAAMs. Dozens of missiles streaked across the sky, leaving a converging wash of bloody trails as the smoke reflected the rising sun.

Their missiles launched, the three squadrons of hornets and super hornets turned their attention to the remaining fighter analogs. Relieved of dealing with them alone, the Iron Rhino squadron sent their own remaining radar-guided missiles out to deal with the UFO.

Several drones broke away from the engagement, trying desperately to shoot down the missiles bound for their mother ship. The Neuroi itself fired repeatedly, but for every missile vaporized or shattered, several more pummeled the Neuroi.

Even with the protection offered by his tinted visor, Ellis squinted against the brilliant light from dozens of explosions. Just as before, he waited, watching to see how much damage they'd really done.

"No frickin' way!" protested one of the pilots loudly. "That thing's _still_ not dead!"

Though at least seventy percent of the craft's mass had been blown away by missiles, the remaining chunk did not drop stonelike as it should have. White glowed along the edges of the battered hulk, and already it was regrowing again. Ellis keyed his radio. "This is Longbow leader. Surface group, go for missile launch."

The cruisers and destroyers of strike group two cut loose with volley after volley of their more powerful surface to air missiles, focusing on the Neuroi while the fighters continued to engage the drones.

A keening shriek cut through the air, causing several of the aviators to wince, for they had heard it even over the din of battle. In its battered state, the Neuroi could not maneuver well and had few weapons. A few futile shots lashed out at the incoming waves of missiles, but made little difference in the end. Missile after missile exploded, and finally one struck the core, though none present knew of the Neuroi's weakness.

The Neuroi cracked as yet more missile impacts rippled across its surface, and bit by bit it broke into white fragments, scattered fire and wide by the remaining missile detonations.

Drones dropped like bricks toward the sea, rendered inert by the loss of their source. "This is Longbow lead," said Ellis. "Looks like bandits have been handled." Listening to his comrades cheer in victory, he couldn't help but smile and lean back in his seat. And yet, even for this victory, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was very wrong.

* * *

**XCOM Headquarters, Central Europe**

"Come, Manya," Yaira's tone was light and teasing, using the diminutive form of her fellow tanker's name.

Stifling a yawn, Mariya leaned heavily against the taller Yaira, roused from a sound sleep but a few hours after laying down. Something about an emergency, requiring them to be called to mission control. "Couldn't it wait till morning...?"

The doors of the lift opened with a ding, and Yaira shepherded her sleepy charge down the corridor. Yaira presented their XCOM badges to the guards on duty, who then admitted them. The same situation that had resulted in a soldier pounding on the door of Yaira and Mariya's room at three in the morning had also beckoned Ji and Commander Chekov. Ji stood I-beam stiff near the center of the room, while Chekov was consulting with a pair of technicians.

Surveying the monitors through bleary eyes, Mariya took in enough to see that XCOM had tracked a UFO over Japan. "What did you call us for, sir?" she added the last word after a momentary pause. What use would the tankers be with a UFO half a world away?

"Ladies," Chekov said with a nod. "This latest UFO has already been dealt with, but its design was not like anything we have seen before." He gestured to a technician, and there were twin gasps as Yaira and Mariya took in the image that had appeared on a nearby monitor.

"Neuroi," hissed Ji, her eyes narrowing dangerously. There was no mistaking the glistening black hull with its studded hexagon pattern.

"At ease," said Chekov. "A US navy task force dealt with the Neuroi despite not knowing what it was."

Mariya's eyes widened. "How did they do that?"

"With close to four hundred air to air and surface to air missiles," Chekov said, shaking his head in bemusement at the excessive use of ordnance.

"Their commander was smart," said Ji, speaking with a certain tone of clinical admiration. "They must have seen the Neuroi regenerating and decided overwhelming it was the best option."

"Indeed," said Chekov. "They lost a number of planes and some of their pilots, not to mention tens of millions in US dollars of ordnance fired, but that isn't what concerns us."

"Somehow a Neuroi followed us," said Yaira.

"I wonder if other stuff is going to fall through," mused Mariya, finally finding the energy to stand a little straighter, though remaining leaned against Yaira. A look of distress crossed her face. "This Earth is already struggling against one alien invasion, and we're about to bring on another one..."

"It's not our fault," Yaira said. "I wonder if anything from this Earth has ended up on ours."

"Out of curiosity," said Chekov. "Do regular military units ever engage the Neuroi in your world? It seems unsuitable to leave the fighting to – no offense intended – children."

"Regular military forces do fight the Neuroi," said Ji, her voice still subdued but hard, almost monotone. "Granted they know to target a Neuroi's core, but even so the results aren't always pretty in terms of lives and material lost. Witches are more efficient."

"There aren't enough witches to fight a war all by themselves," said Mariya. "We still rely on regular military units to a fair extent, even if... the price can be high."

"Commander!" There was a tremor of alarm in the voice of one of the technicians, a young bespectacled blonde who was one of several monitoring world communications. "Crap, crap, _crap_," she said under her breath as Chekov strode over. "We're getting simultaneous feeds from Washington DC, Moscow, Paris, Tokyo, Canberra, and Dubai. They're all under alien attack."

"It never stops, does it," said Mariya, shaking her head slowly. They watched as Chekov and Doctor Shen conversed in low, urgent voices.

"It's no different than being back home," Ji said frostily, joining her fellow witches. "People die, no matter how hard we try." Her voice was sad, distant.

"B-but that's not an excuse to stop trying!" said Mariya, looking to Yaira for backup. "They drove the Neuroi off Earth in the first war, we can do it again."

"There's nothing _we_ can do for them right now," growled Ji. "Not while we're stuck in this hole."

"It's fortunate then," Doctor Shen was saying to Chekov. "That I had come up here to tell you that the first batch of LWR-1s just finished their final test regimen. They're ready for field use."

"Good," said Chekov, eying the globe in the center of the room. He watched minute pips of local air defense forces scramble after the UFOs besieging half a dozen national capitals. Five of the six UFOs broke away and went hypersonic, leaving would-be pursuers in the dust, the damage already done. Only the one over Australia remained on station.

"Sir," said the bespectacled technician. "We're getting reports of alien troops on the ground in Canberra."

"Prepare Voodoo three-one for launch," said Chekov. "Have Ruiz assemble his team. The aliens want a fight? Then they will have it."

* * *

**Canberra, Australia**

Logan McGorey had been born in the United States. After graduating high school, he enlisted in the army and before long found himself serving with the elite Army Rangers. He had spent the eighties and early nineties traversing global hotspots, taking lives and saving them too, earning numerous citations but never starting a family of his own. Eventually he retired from active duty, and moved to Australia to be with his favorite niece. He found work as a soccer coach, and had seen some promising athletes pass through his team. He thought the rest of his life would pass in relative peace.

If that was to remain true, he mused, his definition of relative peace was going to need amending to include 'UFOs, aliens in the streets, killing at will, flames, panic, despair, oh my.' The aliens' first targets had been power plants, communications, and transport systems. Smoke from the blasted airport was visible to the northeast, and the panic had quickly turned most of the city's roads into rowdy parking lots. The SRG had deployed in a brave effort to halt the aliens, but conventional assault rifles and light body armor were no match for the horrors coming from above. Sirens, the likes of which hadn't been heard in such great quantities since the days of the Battle of Britain, screamed out their warnings to take cover.

In trying to cross the city on foot to find his niece, he had linked up with several other civilians. The streets were simply too dangerous now, with packs of aliens everywhere. All they could do was find a place to hole up and hope the military could deal with the invaders. He had told his niece to do the same if they could not contact each other in an emergency.

"Stay low, close, and quiet," said Logan, holding his old service rifle steady as he moved. According to official records, the rifle had been misplaced in transport. Unofficially, he kept his 'lucky charm'. The recent publicly-demanded relaxation of Australia's gun laws had allowed him to stock up on ammo and bolster his arsenal. A hunting rifle had been given to the tough-looking woman trailing behind him, while his shotgun was in the hands of a reedy young man in his late teens. Pale as a sheet, the kid looked scared stiff, but Logan could see the determination lurking in his eyes.

They needed some place low and sturdy, ideally one with few windows. Pausing, Logan heard a low pulsing sound followed by a high-pitched scream. He caught flashes of green light reflecting off the windshield of a wrecked van, and found his finger tightening on the trigger. The perfect spot would have to wait. They needed to be out of sight _now_.

The nearest buildings were a gas station, a hotel, and a cellular phone store. "The hotel," he said. "Move!" He lead the staggered line of a half dozen people, the only living ones he'd come across so far. They slipped inside the empty frames that were the front doors, the shards of broken glass crunching underfoot.

"Go!" Logan covered their entrance, scanning the streets outside. "Find a store room or office or something, one with no windows." A sinister roar echoed through the streets, and Logan's knuckles whitened as his grip tightened. He moved to follow the last of his band inside, and heard something rushing toward him.

Heat exploded over Logan as the plasma bolt disintegrated a meter's worth of wall and doorway. Excited chittering noises came from the street. "Son of a bitch," growled Logan. "They've seen us. Not safe here. Out the back door!"

He heard the familiar _bang!_ of his hunting rifle firing. "They're out back too!" yelled the teenager.

"Upstairs!" yelled one of the other survivors, a middle-aged man in a singed and tattered business suit.

"No!" yelled Logan. "You'll be trapped." But, panicking, several others followed him up. "Damn," he muttered. Even if they were doing the last sensible thing in this situation, his sense of duty wouldn't allow him to just leave. "I told myself I'd never utter the words 'I'm too old for this shit', but..."

The teen gave a dry, short laugh. "I don't think there's a right age to be shot at by aliens, sir. Let's go." The duo made their way to the stairwell. Turning back, Logan saw a spindly form with a bulging head and a glowing weapon strapped to its arm skirt around the edge of a sofa in the lobby. It leveled its weapon at them and fired.

Instinctively Logan ducked through the doorway, but the young man wasn't so lucky. The bolt slammed into the door of a utility closet in the stairwell, burning through. But even the merest graze it had inflicted on the teenager was enough to sear his arm and side with painful burns. Yelping in pain, he held the shotgun in an awkward one-handed grip.

"Upstairs, now!" Logan gave the kid a push, and relied on the adrenaline coursing through him to quickly follow. He heard the sound of more _things_ in the lobby, and stopped at the top of the first flight of stairs.

The instant something appeared framed in the doorway, Logan opened fire on it. Several quick bursts shredded the pale, gray-skinned creature. He ducked back as a plasma bolt shot up the stairwell, then delivered a retaliatory burst that killed a second gray.

The footsteps of something larger approached. A nightmarish creature stepped into the doorway, standing upon four clawlike legs, its chitinous body an eerie purple. The sight of its glowing yellow eyes sent a tingle of fear down the spine of the retired soldier.

Logan thumbed his weapon to full auto. The creature shuddered as the rounds hit it, but he had the unsettling feeling that many of his shots were bouncing off its armor. His weapon dry-clicked, and by honed reflex he reloaded smoothly and efficiently. The creature advanced, and Logan moved to climb the next flight of stairs. This thing didn't have a visible weapon, if he could bring it down from a distance its scythelike claws would never enter the equation.

In what seemed like the time it took to blink, the alien had vaulted up the stairs and landed in front of Logan. Its jaws dripped gelatinous saliva as they flapped hungrily.

Logan raised his rifle, knowing he couldn't escape from such speed. "**Rangers lead the way!**"

* * *

Olivia Green winced as the sound of Logan's rifle cut off abruptly. She looked around at the other survivors huddling in the second floor common area, and saw her thoughts reflected in their eyes. _We're all going to die_.

The stairwell echoed with the footsteps of those horrible things. The young man, Steve, nodded to Olivia grimly, and the only two armed members of the band took up positions to fire on the doorway. They had swapped weapons, the young man bracing the semi-automatic rifle over the arm of a chair, while Olivia clutched the shotgun so tightly her hands ached.

There was movement, and wounded teenager fired. Puffs of wood and plaster exploded from the wall as his shots went wide. A bestial roar of challenge seemed to shake the very building, causing several of the civilians to squeak in terror.

A hulking form emerged from the doorway, clad in green metal armor. Its bulging muscles hefted a weapon nearly a quarter of the brute's own size in one hand. Steve and Olivia opened fire, peppering the monstrosity with bullets and buckshot. Olivia couldn't even tell if they were hitting it, the creature simply stood there blinking as if in a light rain. Its weapon came around. "Duck!" she screamed.

A green jet of plasma leaped in their direction, and Olivia's skin prickled with the painful heat. Dazed, she looked back, wondering how many of them had survived the blast. She only counted four, with a charred splotch where two had been hunkered behind an overturned desk. The creature adjusted its aim, and a finger nearly the size of Olivia's forearm tightened on its trigger.

Glass shattered at the end of the hallway as a figure crashed through it. Though fully armored, the shape and proportions were comfortingly human. In its hands was clutched a bizarre glowing weapon, but the boxy construct had a red tinge to the alien's green. The figure sighted on the brute and fired, red light spearing the creature in the arm.

Bellowing in pain, the brute swung around, only to be shot once, twice, three times in the chest and head. Smoke curled from the beast's wounds as it tumbled forward, dead. More weapons fire came from below, a mixture of bizarre energy weapons and more comforting automatic gunfire. Then, silence.

Olivia stared at their rescuer in wonder, and one by one her companions were coming out of their shock.

"Casino, this is Banzai." A woman's voice came from the figure's masked face. "I have four civilians up here." There was a pause, then she turned to the group. "Relax. We're here to help. The SRG has a field hospital set up three blocks south of here. We've cleared the way. Go." She paused again, and the sounds of distant gunfire were heard.

Olivia spied a logo on the chestplate of the woman's armor, an X laid over a set of circles. "_Them,_" she breathed. As Olivia watched, Banzai ran back to the window, shot some kind of grappling line from her arm, and dropped out of sight.


	6. Chapter 6

**Canberra, Australia**

Riding fiery rockets, a floater blasted over the cityscape. Its cybernetically enhanced eyesight scanned a total of five humans spread out across the courtyard below. Tilting downward and reducing thrust, the legless cyborg dropped in low for a landing. Its intended position would put it on the high ground over the team, an ideal spot to hose the hunkering group's flanks with plasma.

Suddenly the floater shivered, experiencing an intense vibration in its chest. A loud crack split the air, and as the floater looked down, it found a large, pulpy hole punched clean through its chest. Electric pain coursed through the floater from its damaged implants, and the creature slumped to the ground as it rapidly bled out.

"X-ray down," said Lieutenant Shoke, the South African's voice as smooth as the hand working the bolt of his sniper rifle. A pity that only the assault rifle equivalent laser weapons were ready in time for this mission. The LWM-1 light machine gun equivalent and the LWS-1 sniper rifle equivalent were still in testing phases.

Still, from his lofty perch Shoke didn't think it was so bad. His current rifle was familiar, and provided he didn't need to bring down a Muton, adequate enough. He brought his binoculars to his eyes and scanned the street ahead, looking for any further hostiles. The aliens didn't care a lick about camouflage, and glowing green weapons tended to be a giveaway as well. "Looks clear."

"Affirmative," said Major Ruiz. "Telsia, Ozawa, forward." Sergeant 'Banzai' Telsia lead the way, her laser rifle and her eyes searching left and right as she advanced. Ozawa, one of the new recruits, followed along behind her.

Bolts of plasma suddenly slashed out from a nearby store front. One of them caught Ozawa in the chest, burning through his armor and slamming him to the ground. The rookie cried out in pain, while Telsia darted to cover. "Two Sectoids!" she called out into the radio. "That one's a good shot, I bet they're mind-linked."

"I've got this," said Ruiz. "Keep them occupied."

"Don't think that'll be a problem!" Telsia yelled back, ducking down as one plasma bolt after another burned rapidly through the concrete divider she was hunkered behind.

Slipping up to a side exit on the restaurant the Sectoids were lurking in, Ruiz quietly pushed the door open. The Sectoids hadn't yet noticed him, leading the man to smirk deviously. Slinging his machine gun, he drew his sidearm. No sense wasting the LMG on soft targets, and with the magnum loads they packed, XCOM's sidearms made quite the manstoppers. Well, alien horror stoppers.

Ruiz snapped off a pair of rounds, the first going wide but the second punching through the abdomen of one Sectoid. With a hiss, the alien turned toward Ruiz, but the commando was faster. Another two shots followed, both drilling into the head of the Sectoid that was already wounded. Ruiz adjusted his aim to take out the second Sectoid, but the creature had already stumbled. It gave a strangled cry and clutched at its head before slumping to the ground. Standing over it, Ruiz put one into its chest just to be sure. "Central," Ruiz said into his radio. "This is Casino. Make sure we tag this gray for autopsy, I think we just found out an Achilles heel in that mental link."

"Affirmative, Casino," replied one of the technicians.

"Ruiz, this is Bashir," said the unit's field medic.

"How's our patient, doc?"

"Another happy recipient of the best medicine lots of money and no red tape can buy," replied Bashir dryly.

"I'm fit, Major," said Ozawa.

"Try to be more careful next time, eh?" said Ruiz.

"Yes, sir."

"Alrighty then." Ruiz cracked his neck to both sides and readied his machine gun again. "Shoke, how's it look?"

"... Looks clear," said the sniper, with a trace of amusement in his voice.

* * *

"I hear gunfire," said a man, holding tight to his wife's hand. This was supposed to be their honeymoon, a chance to play tourist and live normally even if there were aliens invading. Instead they now found themselves in this awful mess, aliens all over the place, death and chaos in the air, and their odds dwindling to those even a gambler would pass on.

"It means someone's fighting those things," replied thew wife. She froze as she heard noise behind them. Slowly she turned, and saw three figures standing on the front steps of a nearby bank. Her first instinct was relief at the sight of other humans in all this insanity, but already warning bells were going off in her head. The trio moved oddly, as though their bones were made of something less rigid. Their eyes gleamed strangely, and patches of skin at their temples seemed scaly. Most telling of all, however, were the glowing green weapons they wielded. Those weren't anything human. "Shit..." she said, her voice faint.

Turning, horror dawned on the husband's face at the sight of the three aliens. Hissing and screeching, the aliens ran down the steps, their gaits loping and inhuman. On instinct the man moved to shield his wife, even though he knew anything he could do would probably only buy her milliseconds.

Gunfire erupted and the man braced himself to die. The gunfire continued and the man thought it strange that he felt no pain. He opened his eyes and saw two of the aliens lay dying, twitching like poisoned insects.

The third, panicking, tried to run. Bringing her head up, the wife looked around, and saw two soldiers clad in full armor run up alongside them. One carried a familiar assault rifle, but the other held some sort of energy weapon. The one with the energy weapon fired on the move, chasing after the fleeing alien. "It's okay!" said the other soldier. "You'll be safe now!" Then he was off. Almost as quickly as the soldiers had come, they were gone again.

* * *

Ozawa grimaced as a blast from a heavy plasma rifle melted a meter-wide hole in a nearby wall. He'd already been wounded once on this mission, and even the drugs couldn't dull the memory of the pain that had accompanied the first hit.

Swinging out of the alleyway, Ozawa squeezed off a shot from his laser rifle. The targeted Muton however ducked, the beam grazing the side its face and burning a furrow into its shoulder armor. _These things are formidable,_ thought Ozawa. He retrieved a grenade from his vest and primed the explosive. Odds were it wouldn't kill the beast, but even those brutes surely couldn't ignore a dozen bits of red-hot metal digging into them.

With an expert arm, Ozawa landed the grenade within two meters of the Muton. It raised an arm to ward off the blast, but the concussion alone sent the creature reeling backward. Ozawa heard a chuckle in his ear, and realized it was Shoke. The Muton had just entered the sniper's line of fire.

Dazed, the Muton shook its head, hate burning in its eyes as it sighted on Ozawa. With primal fury the creature roared, pounding its chest like a furious silverback. Fear trickled into Ozawa's stomach as the Muton stomped toward him, but the creature's stance faltered as four high-velocity rounds impacted its face, neck, and chest. The chest impacts deflected off the creature's armor, but yellow blood squirted out from the wounds in unprotected areas.

The Muton leveled its plasma rifle at Ozawa, and the rookie's panic flared up. He squeezed the trigger of his laser rifle again and again, sending ruby lances stabbing into the Muton's existing wounds. Haggard breaths came from Ozawa's lungs, and he kept squeezing the trigger even when the weapon stopped firing and beeped repeatedly at him to indicate it was out of charge.

Sprawled dead since about the third laser burst, the ashy Muton stank horribly of burnt flesh, and sections of its armor bubbled, made molten from the heat.

Forcing himself to take deep breaths, Ozawa ejected the spent power cell and slapped in a fresh one. The familiar action helped calm Ozawa, and he felt reassured when the power meter filled with green again. He keyed his radio. "Ozawa here. X-ray neutralized."

"Copy that," Ruiz's response was marred by the sounds of gunfire and inhuman shrieks. "We found some Thin Men and Floaters trying to close in on some holed-up civvies. Bashir's been hit but Banzai patched him up."

"Ozawa, three o'clock!" Shoke's panicked transmission made the rookie snap his head around. A creature with glowing eyes stalked toward him, its flitting motions reminiscent of an insect. It had four slender legs and a purple exoskeleton, clawed arms and a slobbering maw with clicking insectoid mandibles.

"Shoke!" Ozawa called for the sniper to take it out as well even as he opened fire on it as well. Ozawa's first shot went wide, and the creature surprised him by leaping some five meters to land atop a nearby car.

The sniper's response was marred by the echo of gunfire Ozawa could hear in the air. "Busy here!"

Ozawa swung his gun around and fired again on what he thought of as a _stalker_, and saw the shot char and warp exoskeleton over the creature's midsection. The alien jumped again, landing atop a light pole. It swung gracefully under it like an acrobat, and lunged at Ozawa. The rookie ducked and dove to the side, making it overshoot.

Landing hard, Ozawa twisted and brought his weapon up. He would hopefully have a few seconds to bring the creature down before it could recover and turn around. Another shot from his laser rifle caught the creature in the back, but then one of its rear legs speared him through the shoulder. Immediately Ozawa's arm went numb, and the creature seemed to draw vicious glee from yanking its clawlike leg from the wound.

Unable to aim his rifle one-handed, Ozawa went for his pistol. Shot after shot snapped from the weapon, striking the creature as it turned around. It lunged, its mandibles tearing through Ozawa's armor with sickening ease, and the flesh beneath just as well. The alien hissed as it stood over Ozawa's lifeless corpse, then turned toward where its kin had pinpointed the enemy sharpshooter.

"Like _hell,"_ snarled Ruiz, having arrived just in time to see one of his men eviscerated. Again he lowered his light machine gun, anger driving him to draw his as of yet unused missile launcher. Practiced hands extended the weapon to its ready configuration.

Telsia quickly scrambled to the side, lest she get caught in the backblast. Her skeleton armor might offer some protection, but she opted not to find out. Ruiz sighted in on the quadrupedal alien as it charged toward him, and fired. The missile screamed from its launch tube, reaching the target in barely a second. The explosion ripped the alien open like a wet paper bag, scattering shell fragments, blood, and what had probably been vital organs in all directions.

"This, uh, Central," came Bradford's voice over the link. "Scans show the area as clear. Well done, strike-one." There was a pause. "Remind me never to make _him_ angry," muttered Bradford, apparently unaware his headset was still live.

* * *

**XCOM Headquarters, Central Europe**

Commander Chekov did his best to keep the sour expression from his face as he read the latest after action report. It wasn't any failing on the part of Major Ruiz, or any of his soldiers. He didn't blame the dead rookie – Ozawa – for the grizzly fate he had suffered at the hands of what the lab rats were now calling 'Chrysallids'. He didn't blame Bashir for getting wounded, nor Shoke, the force's best sniper. XCOM was winning or at least drawing most every battle they fought, but the aliens always conducted abduction runs on more cities than XCOM could cover, and Chekov had the constant anxiety that the war was a rising tide turned against them. XCOM was making progress, designing new weapons in the lab, refining tactics in the officer training school, and slowly growing their spread of interceptors, observation satellites, and early-warning systems. But the aliens continued to hold the initiative.

As a leader, Chekov had to mask his worries and give the orders to keep his nightmares from becoming reality. Preoccupied, Chekov didn't notice Bradford until the younger man cleared his throat. "You look like you could use a drink."

"If I started, I might not stop," Chekov said. He gestured to the map dominating one wall of the situation room visible through a glass wall in his office. "Even with the mission in Canberra, there's growing unrest around the world. Some cities have been all but abandoned after they were hit. Several countries are suspected of alien infiltration."

"May be true, sir," admitted Bradford. "Or it could be psi-ops. The aliens could spread false information to get us to turn on each other."

Chekov snorted. "If our destruction is their aim, humans nearly accomplished that ourselves during the cold war."

That was too true. "Anyway," Bradford went on. "We got a report from the science team. They finally cracked the signals used by that outsider shard. Tracing their sources, we found a major hub located in Africa. One of our satellites detected an underground structure. Nearly as large as this facility"

"They built a _base_?" Chekov's tone was half incredulous, half furious. He frowned, interlacing his fingers. "Why...?" Why would a species with ships that could hide in orbit have a presence down on the surface, especially a command center like that?

"If I had to guess sir, I'd say hubris. Just like their shelling stunt over a half-dozen capitals, it's to show us just how outclassed we are. Maybe they figure we'll surrender if it seems hopeless."

Chekov snorted. "They do not know us well," he said darkly. "It may also be simple logistics." He stopped and shook his head. It didn't matter if the aliens had built the base to start selling flowers and sweets. They had to deal with it.

"The base is protected by some kind of energy field," said Bradford. "But it appears as though the Outsiders have a way through. Doctor Shen's team is working on a device to allow our team entry into the base." He chuckled, then added, "They're calling it a skeleton key."

"Good," said Chekov. "Once it's ready we'll send a team."

* * *

The camouflage shutter retracted as Ji descended toward what appeared to be an empty stretch of rock. She eased back on the throttle and flipped vertical, lowering into the main hangar bay the same as the skyrangers did when returning. She had just returned to base from a successful interception, her second UFO kill. Voodoo three-two had taken a team secure the crash site.

Ji touched down and taxied back over to the support rack constructed for her use. Her cannon was returned to its bracket, and the whine of her jet engines died away.

"So," called out one of the nearby technicians, striding over as the hangar door ground shut again. "How is she handling?"

"Fine," said Ji, failing to notice the puzzlement on the tech's face for her unenthusiastic tone. Initially, she had been dubious about allowing the XCOM personnel to work on her striker unit. But her striker unit was naturally optimized for fighting Neuroi, not Sectoid UFOs. The radar pod had been modified to overcome the saucer's stealthier designs, and the engines had been upgraded as well. Her ordnance bays had also been loaded with a miniaturized version of XCOM's Avalanche missiles. "I must confess, I'm impressed by how quickly your personnel adapted to working with striker units."

The technician was joined by several others, pulling data, combing over the striker unit's dull gray surfaces for stress fractures and battle damage. The technician smiled modestly. "Well, we're used to dealing with alien technology here. Compared to stuff built by creatures whose _smallest_ oddity is that they apparently have base sixteen math, learning the ropes of technology at least built by humans is actually kind of relaxing."

Ji jumped down from her striker unit, but paused to run a hand over the side of her striker unit. It was originally derived from an older design, but had been modernized with internal ordnance bays, re-engineered hull geometry, and built with a radar absorbent coating. Such 'stealth' striker units had become all the rage, the same as regular jets, but Ji felt a tiny amount of pride at being able to hide herself from the visual spectrum just as well as her striker hid them from radar and infra-red. Mariya's striker unit, the sleek tank-type that it was, actually had a similar coating. Ji shook her head slightly. Stealth on ground armor. The Orussians had strange ideas sometimes.

"Ji!" Mariya's voice called out from near the hangar exit. Ji couldn't help a sigh. Sorties and even practice had been wearing her out and leaving her sore lately. She'd been hoping to slip off to her quarters to have some quiet, but Mariya had been trying to get her to come out once in awhile. Ji always blew her off, but as Mariya grabbed her by the arm, Ji knew that wasn't going to happen this time.

"We heard about your second UFO kill," said Mariya, offering the sky witch a smile. "There's a Royal Marine down there who wants to buy you a drink."

Ji gave a dry snort, her expression remaining blank as she let herself be lead toward the base lounge. "Is Yaira with the retrieval team?"

Mariya shook her head. "She's down in the firing range. Wanted to try out one of the laser rifles after she heard how much more effective they were than the standard ballistic weapons."

Ji snorted with slight amusement, but did not smile. That sounded like Yaira. She would probably want the first laser cannon installed on her Merkava tank striker unit.

The doors of the lounge parted as they approached. The chatter of voices and the tinkle of glasses wafted out to meet the witches. A knot of people were clustered around the memorial wall, pinning the photo of the dead rookie up alongside their other fallen. The conversations quieted somewhat however as a relayed news broadcast came up on one of the televisions.

"Early this morning," said the thickset, pasty newscaster. "The Australian capital of Canberra came under alien siege. While the attacks in other cities simply consisted of high-altitude shelling, Canberra saw the deployment of alien foot soldiers. Casualties have already topped ten thousand, and that number is expected to rise sharply as stock is taken."

What followed next was grainy footage, pulled from cell phones, and stuttering, sometimes black-and-white footage from security cameras. It was footage the XCOM operatives would know well... considering it showed them in action.

"A supersonic aircraft penetrated the cordon and deployed soldiers of unknown affiliation to the region." A blurry image enhancement of an operator's patch appeared on screen. "The troops engaged the aliens." Footage followed, the recordings marred by dazzling weapons flashes. "And defeated them before vanishing as mysteriously as they came. These 'Force X' soldiers have been spotted around the world, typically wherever the alien menace has struck, but this is the first occasion they have taken direct action to protect imperiled civilians."

Several clips of interviewed Canberrans followed. "They saved us," said a young woman, part of her face wrapped in bandages.

An elderly man was next. "I thought we were all done for," he shook his head slowly. "But then these people showed up, before the military managed to deploy, and sent the bug-eyes packing." He hesitated, but then looked at the camera. "Whoever you people are, thank you."

"Indeed," said the newscaster. "While the origin of Force X remains unknown, it seems their intervention saved many lives."

"See?" Mariya squeezed Ji's arm slightly. "XCOM is making a difference, and we can help them."

"I know that," Ji said, her expression souring slightly.

"Can't you at least smile? Something?" said Mariya, tilting her head.

Ji scowled at her. "I don't see the others celebrating too much. XCOM saved one city. The panic index might have dropped in that region, but the war is far from over."

"Our world is at war too," Mariya said. "That didn't stop you from taking Captain Wilcke out for ice cream after her thirtieth kill," said Mariya. "Or from sneaking off base that one time to see Metalstride in concert." Ji's teeth clenched, apparently unaware she had been rumbled on that particular occasion. "Or playing your guitar." Pain stirred in Mariya's eyes, not for herself, but for her friend. "I know you're worried about Lisbeth. But we're all missing home, our friends, our squadronmates, our beds, letters from family. I'm even missing Elina's weird cooking experiments, so why is it just you acting like such a hardass? _Please_, talk to us."

"Leave me alone." Ji's tone left Mariya with a chill, but not because of anger in the sky witch's voice. In fact, there wasn't anything in it at all, flat as paper and dull as gray. No sadness, not even irritation. "I'm fit to fly and kill the enemy threatening this world. That's all that matters." Ji spun on her heel with military precision, and marched out of the room.


End file.
